WASHINGTON – In the first seriously contested Senate Republican leadership election in decades, three senators are fighting to replace longtime GOP leader Mitch McConnell when he leaves office early next year and Republicans retake the majority in the Senate.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Florida Sen. Rick Scott campaigned hard to win the support of their colleagues in Wednesday’s secret ballot election. All three try to convince their colleagues that they have the power ear of President-elect Donald Trump and will be the best person to implement his program.

They are also trying to differentiate themselves from McConnell, saying they will give more power to rank-and-file senators and be more forthcoming.

It’s unclear who will win, or if there will be multiple rounds of voting before a winner is chosen.

A look back at the three candidates:

SEN. JOHN THUNE

Thune, 63, defeated then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in 2004 after arguing during the campaign that Daschle had lost his South Dakota roots during his years leading the Democratic Party. Thune now presents himself as majority leader.

A well-liked and respected communicator, Thune was seen as a favorite for much of the year. He is currently the second-ranking Republican in the Senate and took over from McConnell for a few weeks last year while he was on medical leave. He is also a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

As he prepared to run for president, Thune spent much of the year campaigning for his colleagues. According to aides, he raised more than $31 million to elect Republicans to the Senate this cycle, including a $4 million transfer from his own campaign accounts to the Senate’s main campaign arm.

One potential liability for Thune is his previously rocky relationship with Trump. Thune was highly critical of the then-president as he attempted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Thune said at the time that Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power were “inexcusable.”

This year, however, Thune and Trump spoke frequently on the phone, and Thune visited the then-Republican candidate at his home in Florida. Thun told the Associated Press over the summer, he views their potential relationship as a professional one. If they both win their elections, Thune said, “we have a job to do.”

SEN. JEAN CORNY

Like Thune, Cornyn is a popular and respected member of the Republican Senatorial Conference. A former Texas attorney general and member of the state Supreme Court, much of his work was conducted in the Senate Judiciary Committee. He also served as McConnell’s No. 2, the position Thune now holds, for six years before losing his position for a limited term.

Cornyn, 72, also spent much of the year courting colleagues one by one and raising money for them across the country. He has long been one of the Senate’s top fundraisers, and aides say he has raised more than $400 million for his party’s candidates during his 22 years in office.

In 2022, after a gunman storms a Texas elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachersCornyn was operated by McConnell to lead the GOP in negotiating gun legislation with Democrats. The invoice, spent this summerstepped up background checks on buyers under 21, increased prosecutions of unlicensed gun sellers, and invested millions of dollars in youth mental health services. Although Cornyn has touted his work on the gun bill, it could cost him some votes with the conference’s more conservative members.

Cornyn has also had past tensions with Trump, including his early suggestions that Trump might not be the best Republican candidate to run in 2024. But he, too, smoothed relations with the new president, meeting with him when he was to Texas to campaign and visit him in Florida.

SEN. RICK SCOTT

While Thune and Cornyn both have leadership experience and have spent most of the year methodically trying to woo individual senators, Scott is running a different type of campaign. And he believes he has a clear advantage: his relationship with Trump.

Scott, a former two-term governor of Florida and successful businessman, was re-elected for a second term in the Senate last week, defeating Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by more than 10 points. He is a longtime backer of the new president and has positioned himself as a strong ally. Scott traveled to New York support Trump during the Trump campaign silence, money test earlier this year, and openly said he wanted Trump to support him.

He gained massive support on social media over the weekend when he was endorsed by people close to Trump, including Elon Musk. But Trump hasn’t weighed in on the Senate race.

It’s unclear whether Scott’s outsider approach could win him more support in the clubby Senate. He won by 10 votes when he challenged McConnell for the position in 2022, and he will aim to improve on that tally in the first round of voting on Wednesday.

Scott, 71, is part of a growing group of far-right senators who have criticized McConnell’s tenure and advocated for more power for individual members. Several senators in that group, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, have supported him, arguing that his business experience and relationship with Trump should put him front and center.