John Thune (born January 7, 1961, Pierre, South Dakota, U.S.) is an American politician who was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and began representing South Dakota the following year. Thune was elected Senate majority leader in 2024, with his tenure to begin the following year.

Twenty years after he won his Senate seat by assailing Tom Daschle’s performance as minority leader, John Thune is the chamber’s next majority leader. Thune’s Republican colleagues elected him to the job Wednesday. The South Dakotan now faces a test like the one he accused Daschle of failing. “There is a line where seniority and […]

Young John Thune grew to a 6-feet-4-inch star on his high school basketball team. He went on to play college basketball while earning a bachelor’s degree in business from Biola University, a private Christian university in California. ... He launched his political career with a bid for an open U.S. House seat in 1996. He won that race and ...

Senator John Thune (R-SD) adjusts his mask after speaking to the media after the Republican's weekly senate luncheon in the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., on December 8, 2020.

Thune, who won Wednesday’s vote 29-24 in the second round of voting against Cornyn, will officially become majority leader when the new Senate is sworn in on January 3. McConnell, who has led ...

Thune began his political career in Washington in the 1980s, working for former U.S. Sen. Jim Abdnor (R-S.D.) before joining the Small Business Administration during the Reagan administration, per his biography. Zoom in: Thune and his wife, Kimberley Thune, have been married since 1984. The couple has two children and five grandchildren.

Mr. Thune may be at the top of the Senate shortly, but it was not an easy path for the star high school athlete who grew up in tiny Murdo, S.D., and started his political career as a junior aide ...

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota is set to become Senate majority leader in the new Congress, after Republicans flipped the chamber in the 2024 elections.

Whip John Thune, a former Trump critic, wins Senate GOP leader post: What we know so far. U.S. Sen. John Thune, of South Dakota, was chosen by his peers to lead his Republican colleagues in the ...