The battle for control of the Senate GOP conference between mainstream Republicans and Trump-aligned conservatives is playing out in key Senate races that could tip more power to conservative Senate rebels.
Republican strategists say the outcome of races in Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Ohio and West Virginia will shape the future of the Senate Republican Conference and may push it in the direction of the more conservative, populist House GOP majority.
If Republican candidates Kari Lake and Bernie Moreno win in Arizona and Ohio, respectively, it would bolster Senate conservatives such as Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) who have battled with the party establishment in Washington for years.
“We’ve seen an increasing number of Republican senators who are more populist, and it’s absolutely possible there are going to be more Republicans that fall under that philosophy,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist and former Senate leadership aide.
“If you look at the House, more Republicans have been elected that are populist and don’t follow the typical mainstream conservative Republicans’ viewpoints, and that’s starting to be more reflected in the Senate,” he said.
“With Moreno or Lake elected to the Senate, they’re not going to necessarily follow Senate Republican leadership, and they’re going to much more likely follow either Donald Trump or their own populist drummer — just like what’s going on in the House,” he continued.
Both Lake and Moreno are closely aligned with Trump and have embraced his unsubstantiated claim that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, a claim that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team firmly rejected.
Lake previously called McConnell an “old bat” who needed to be booted from the GOP leadership and last year questioned his mental fitness for the job, though she has since softened her opposition to McConnell.
By contrast, she repeatedly praised Trump as “superman” in her unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial campaign.
Lake told reporters in the Capitol earlier this month she would oppose sending more military aid to Ukraine, putting her in the same camp of MAGA-aligned Republicans in Congress and at odds with McConnell.
Moreno aired a digital ad in January of 2022 in which he looked directly into the camera and declared: “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
Reagan McCarthy, a spokesperson for Moreno’s campaign, said his position claiming the 2020 election was stolen remains “unchanged.”
He was backed early by the conservative Club for Growth, which has a history of backing anti-GOP establishment candidates in primaries, and also opposes sending more U.S. aid to the war in Ukraine, which he dismissed as a “bloody stalemate.”
Matt Dole, an Ohio-based Republican strategist, said Moreno would come to the Senate as a conservative in the mold of Sens. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Cruz or Lee, all critics of the Senate GOP leadership within their own conference.
“He’s certainly a Trump guy and likely to be a senator sort of in the mold of JD Vance,” Dole said. “He understands the political era we’re in, where you’ve got to express your opinion in grand terms to get coverage.”
Dole, however, called Moreno an “analytical” businessman who would make his own decisions.
He noted that Moreno comes from outside the GOP political establishment in Ohio; he moved to the state in 2005 to buy a car dealership and eventually grew his operation to 55 dealerships before shifting to the blockchain technology business.
Moreno called his opponent, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), an “old commie” at a recent rally in Dayton, where he pledged to help push Trump’s “America First” agenda through Congress.
Moreno has shifted dramatically closer to Trump in the last few years. He made critical statements of Trump in 2016, even privately bashing him as a “lunatic” and a “maniac.”
His daughter is married to a former Trump aide, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), which GOP strategists say helped cement ties between Moreno and Trump.
If Lake and Moreno win in November, it could have an impact on the race to replace McConnell, enticing another candidate to jump into the race, such as Scott, who says he’s “seriously considering” it.
“There definitely could be a dark-horse candidate that could potentially take the conference to a second or third ballot before they get to a consensus. It’s not a given that it’s going be Sens. Cornyn and Thune,” Bonjean said.
He said the election of more populist senators to the Senate GOP conference “could add a wrinkle” to the leadership race.
Senate GOP aides say the outcome of the race to succeed McConnell is also likely to be heavily influenced by whether Trump wins a second term as president.
Republican candidates in several other states where the GOP has a chance to pick up Democratic-held Senate seats — Maryland, Montana and West Virginia — would be more natural allies of McConnell and his most likely successor, either Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) or former Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).
McConnell personally recruited West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) to challenge now-retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and he worked quietly behind the scenes to convince former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to run for retiring Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D) seat.
And McConnell told The Hill last month that he would be involved in the Montana Republican primary to help businessman Tim Sheehy when he was facing an expected challenge from Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), a bomb-thrower in the House Freedom Caucus.
Justice showed his solidarity with McConnell on the war in Ukraine in 2022 by requesting the West Virginia state Legislature send $5 million to help civilian victims of Russian bombing in Ukraine.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, initially echoed McConnell’s call to stop Putin in Ukraine before Russia poses a bigger threat to the rest of Europe but scaled back his endorsement of U.S. military aid while Rosendale loomed as a potential primary rival.
In July, he called for the U.S. to demand a settlement to the war and focus its energy instead on fixing the domestic economy.
Hogan, if elected, would be one of the most centrist members of the Senate GOP conference.
“Kari Lake and Bernie Moreno obviously are different from some of the other candidates who are less MAGA,” said Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide.
“The conference will get a little more conservative” if Lake defeats Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who is also running for retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I) seat, or if Moreno knocks off Brown.
“They’re loud voices; they have a strong presence. If Trump wins, they’re going to be totally in line with the White House, and the more-establishment types will be much less in line with White House,” he said. “You’re going to have a power struggle between whoever ends up being the Republican leader and whoever ends up being leader of the pro-Trump faction in the Senate.”
This story was updated at 11:49 a.m.