Corey Hines

Your question suggests five senators could oust him in the middle of his term as leader. That’s not true. In the House of Representatives, a tiny number of lawmakers can oust the speaker—at any time. That feature is unique to the House. In the Senate GOP we don’t even have a rule or procedure for replacing a leader in the middle of a two-year term. It is true that under our rules, any five senators can call for a meeting of the entire conference at any time. But in practice, that kind of meeting tends not to materialize unless a solid majority of the conference wants it to happen. Even if such a meeting were called and even if it actually materialized, it still wouldn’t end as you seem to assume. To pursue the outcome you’re suggesting, one would have to use that meeting to propose a new procedure for a mid-term leadership swap, and that—at a minimum—would require a majority of the conference to support it. For a whole host of reasons—including the fact that Senator Thune is beloved by colleagues and very popular within the conference—the odds of that happening are literally 0 in 100,000.