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DALLAS — Senate Majority Leader John Thune is brushing off the boos he got at the midterm convention, telling The Post Thursday that he realizes he could be a drag for some GOP frontliners and is more than willing to steer clear of races where his influence won’t improve a candidate’s chances.
Thune (R-SD) said in an exclusive interview that he tells every candidate the same thing when discussing their 2026 campaign: “I’ll come out for you or against you, whichever helps you the most.”
“And sometimes when you’re the dreaded establishment in Washington, you know what the answer to that is,” he joked. “We want to engage however we can, be helpful however we can.”
Republicans control the House and the Senate but are facing headwinds going into the Nov. 3 elections, with Democrats holding a more than six percentage point lead on the generic congressional ballot, according to the RealClearPolitics polling aggregator.
“The president is trying to generate intensity among Republican voters who otherwise in a midterm election might not be inclined to come out and vote,” Thune explained, “but I think he’s trying to convey the sense of urgency — that you need to treat this like I’m on the ballot.”
The Senate majority leader has been doing the same from the sidelines — not the main stage — in Dallas, where he is holding fundraising events behind the scenes rather than speaking.
“We’ve got a number of our candidates down here and we had a box where we were hosting them yesterday,” Thune said.
President Trump had praised Thune moments before the boos from the crowd of Republican attendees, saying the majority leader was destined for “great success.”
“John is working hard. He’s got great opposition. He’s got great opposition from the Democrat, Schumer and these guys, they’re terrible,” Trump responded to the crowd’s jeers. “He’s gonna have great success, you watch.”
Thune said he was nearby, but didn’t hear the president’s compliment “directly” — though he’d “heard there were many boos.”
“I don’t think he’s frustrated with my leadership,” he added. “I think he’s very frustrated with the Senate and institutionally, the rules and the regulations and the procedures and the precedents and everything else we have to deal with.”
That’s been one reason why Trump’s signature voter ID bill, the SAVE America Act, has stalled for months without enough juice to clear the 60-vote filibuster.
Thune’s gotten blowback from hardline Republicans for failing to pass the bill, but noted that Democrats’ obstruction has made it difficult to pass even typically bipartisan measures — and led to the highest number of roll call votes on the floor in Senate history since 1976.
“It’s just reflective of how hard the Democrats have made it to do anything,” he noted. “You know, it used to be in the Senate it takes consent to do almost anything, and they’re just not giving it and they haven’t been working with us because they want to fight this president tooth and nail, and that’s what’s at stake if they get the majority in the House and the Senate.”
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