Is South Dakota’s John Thune the Senate’s Next Minority Leader?

For a state that's one of the most sparsely populated in America, South Dakota politicians are grabbing a lot of headlines lately.

For the past several weeks, Governor Kristi Noem's name has been in the news as one of the handful of potential running mates for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

Now, the senior member of the Mount Rushmore State's congressional delegation finds himself under consideration for one of the top spots in the United States Senate.

Get our free mobile app

Getty Images

Senator John Thune, the number-two Republican in the Senate for the past five years, is now on a shortlist of potential replacements for Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell as Minority Leader after McConnell announced Wednesday (February 28) that he is stepping down as the Republican leader in November.

Thune was first elected to the Senate in 2005 after serving in the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2003.

The Murdo native is widely speculated to be one of five Republicans being considered to succeed McConnell. The other four are:

Senator John Cornyn (Texas)
Senator John Barrasso (Wyoming)
Senator Tom Cotton (Arkansas)
Senator Rick Scott (Florida)

If Thune is picked to take over as Minority Leader, he would be just the second South Dakota politician to secure the post.

Democrat Tom Daschle was the Minority Leader in the Senate from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005. In between, Daschle served as Senate Majority Leader during the 104th Congress (1995-1997).

KEEP READING: Scroll to see what the big headlines were the year you were born

Here's a look at the headlines that captured the moment, spread the word, and helped shape public opinion over the last 100 years.

Gallery Credit: Andrew Lisa

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

Gallery Credit: Sophia Crisafulli

LOOK: Things from the year you were born that don't exist anymore

The iconic (and at times silly) toys, technologies, and electronics have been usurped since their grand entrance, either by advances in technology or breakthroughs in common sense. See how many things on this list trigger childhood memories—and which ones were here and gone so fast you missed them entirely.

Gallery Credit: Stacey Marcus

Source: Is South Dakota’s John Thune the Senate’s Next Minority Leader?