The Senate will elect its new leader on Wednesday

The race for the Republican leadership of the Senate begins Wednesday and could take time to play out because some Republican senators believe the election to replace Mitch McConnellhe Republican leader of the Upper House of Congress could require multiple rounds of voting.

Republican senators returned to the Capitol in Washington DC on Tuesday, for the first time since securing a comfortable majority in the Senate and a victory for the president-elect. donald trump in the elections and are getting ready to hold the election to determine their new leader in the Senate.

The election is carried out by secret ballot and the minority leader in the Senate, John Thune, and the senator John Cornyn of Texas remain the favorites while Senator Rick Scott has received external support from Trump’s entourage.

All three are running to replace McConnell, who has served as head of the Senate Republican Conference for a record 17 years and announced his intention to resign earlier this year.

Before the vote, Republicans will meet behind closed doors Tuesday night to listen to the arguments of Thune, Cornyn and Scottas well as other senators running for leadership positions on lesser candidate lists.

Any other candidate who wishes to run for party leadership may also do so at that time.

The election begins at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in the old Senate chamber. Races for each leadership position will be voted on in descending order. The vote for the Republican leader of the Senate will be the first.

Each candidate can receive up to two nomination speeches and then deliver their own remarks.

A Republican leadership aide told CNN that there may also be a discussion about the candidates after their speeches, which could take some time.

Once the discussion is over, senators will vote in secret ballot. This means that no other senator, no staff member, and not even Trump will know who voted for whom.

Senator John Barrasso and his team will then tabulate the votes. If no candidate reaches a majority, or 27 votes, then the candidate with the fewest votes withdraws and a vote is taken again between the two remaining candidates, meaning there could be multiple rounds of voting.

Following the results of the Senate Republican leadership race, the conference will move in order to vote by the leader of the Republican Party, the president of the conference, the policy committee, the vice president of the conference and the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Trump has not endorsed any candidate in the Senate leadership raceand has chosen instead to insist that the candidate who is selected will support his use of recess appointments, which will allow it to fill federal vacancies temporarily, without Senate approval.

All three candidates have signaled their willingness to use that strategy to quickly fill out Trump’s Cabinet.

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