Full List of Republican Senators Endorsing Rick Scott for Majority Leader

Florida Senator Rick Scott is the front-runner to become the next Senate majority leader, and several Republican Senators have endorsed him ahead of the secret ballot.
After Republicans won control of the Senate in Tuesday’s election, several leading GOP figures endorsed Scott to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who has led Senate Republicans since 2007.
The new GOP majority will be tasked with selecting a caucus leader after being sworn in on January 3 since McConnell announced earlier this year that he will step down from his position in the new term.
Scott, who was endorsed in his Senate reelection bid by President-elect Donald Trump, reiterated his intent and belief that he will be the next majority leader on Wednesday, telling Fox News, “I’m going to win.”
“I’ve been talking to my Republican colleagues, guess what. They want change,” Scott said. “They know that Trump has a mandate. They want to be part of that mandate. They want to be treated as equals.”
Scott, elected to the Senate in 2018, previously served as Florida’s governor beginning in 2011.
Newsweek reached out to Scott’s office for comment via email.
Other possible contenders for the role are South Dakota Senator John Thune and Texas Senator John Cornyn.
While selection for majority leader is expected to occur this coming week, leadership elections are closed-door affairs and conducted by secret ballot, meaning that a senator’s vote is not publicly known. However, to win, a candidate needs a simple majority.
Many figures close to Trump have backed Scott, but the president-elect himself has not done so and has not said whether he plans to.
Despite the ballot being secret, several Republican senators have publicly endorsed Scott:
Among the leading figures in the Republican Party who have endorsed Scott is tech billionaire Elon Musk, who played a major role in Trump’s successful 2024 presidential campaign.
On Sunday, Musk endorsed Scott in a post on X, the social media platform he owns, writing, “Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader!” By Monday, the post had been viewed more than 29.3 million times.
Musk later posted a poll on X, asking which candidate should become majority leader. Scott received 65.5 percent of the vote, Thune received 6.6 percent, and Cornyn received 5.2 percent.
On Monday, Scott wrote on X that he wished to use the leadership role to tackle the national debt.
“For too long, the Washington Establishment has spent money our country doesn’t have & added trillions to our national debt,” Scott wrote. “It makes me sick to think we could pass this problem on to our grandkids. I’m ready to rein in reckless government spending in Washington, just like I did as Florida’s Governor.”