Donald Trump loses*

* Sort of

South Dakota Sen. John Thune was — as predicted in this space! — elected Majority Leader on Wednesday, easily besting MAGA world favorite Rick Scott.

Scott, who was endorsed by all sorts of high-profile allies of President-elect Donald Trump including Elon Musk, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, actually came in third — eliminated on the first ballot by Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. (Thune beat Cornyn on the final ballot 29-24.)

At first blush, this looks like a loss for Trumpworld. While the president-elect didn’t endorse in the race, it seemed pretty clear who he would have preferred to win.

Scott, who spent eight years as governor before being elected to the Senate in 2018, has been a stalwart ally of the former president. Scott even went so far as to run an utterly quixotic challenge to then Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell — at Trump’s urging — after the 2022 election. Scott got 10 votes, McConnell got 37.

Thune is no Scott when it comes to unflinching loyalty to the former president. Trump allies spent the last few days unearthing old quotes and tweets from the South Dakota Senator in which he expressed his doubts about the rise of the former president within the party.

Like this one from the fall of 2016 — in the wake of the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape:

(Thune has since deleted that tweet.)

Seeing the writing on the wall, however, Thune spent the past few years making nice with Trump — knowing that while he might not need the endorsement of the former president, he definitely couldn’t risk being at daggers drawn with him.

In the spring, Thune made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to make amends with Trump. “I think he understands where I’m coming from, so we’ll see what happens,” Thune joked to the Associated Press at the time.

And, in the wake of his victory today, Thune was quick to make clear he was in line with Trump’s agenda. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today,” he said.

But, to be clear, Thune is NOT a Trump guy. He is far more aligned with the old establishment wing of the GOP represented by, among others, McConnell — with whom Trump has regularly and publicly clashed.

So, how did a party that just rode into House and Senate majorities on Trump’s back just elect a guy who is not all that, well, Trump-y?

Three ways.

1. The Senate is a weird place. Senators view themselves as something very close to equal with the president. They are kings and queens of their own fiefdoms. They don’t like to be bullied from the outside. Which is exactly what MAGA world tried to do over the last few days — running a pressure campaign via text and phone to try to strong-arm senators into voting for Scott. For anyone who knows the Senate, you could have predicted it would backfire. And it did.

2. Trump didn’t endorse. Yes, we knew who Trump was closest to in the race — and who all of his major allies were behind. But the president-elect never said (or typed something on Truth Social) that said: “Rick Scott is my guy. People who support me need to support him.” Without that clear direction, senators could weasel out of the idea that a vote against Scott equaled a vote against Trump. Or run the risk of pissing Trump off by not voting for his guy — and, by extension, him.

3. It’s a secret ballot. Yes, we know that Thune won by 5 votes and that Scott was eliminated on the first ballot. But aside from the handful of senators who publicly declared who they would vote for before the actual vote, we have no idea who the majority of senators backed. And they are under no obligation to tell us — and you can be sure they won’t! If the vote had been public — as many Trump types were pushing for it to be — I would guess you would have a very different result; Scott would probably have won.

What does the Thune victory teach us? Most importantly that, behind closed doors and protected by a secret ballot, Republican elected officials are MUCH more willing to break with Trump than they are in public.

Which, I suppose, we already knew. As I’ve told you many times before, there are lots of GOP elected officials who roll their eyes at Trump in private but get in line behind him in public.

This vote is yet more proof of that divide.