Here’s how much the new Senate majority leader is worth

The Republicans elected a new leader in the Senate. Unlike the president he will work with, John Thune is a career politician.

_{From Kyle Khan MullinsForbes contributor}

It It has been 17 years since Senate Republicans have been led by anyone other than Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell. But on November 13, they elected a new leader – South Dakota Senator John Thune, McConnell’s deputy since 2019. Among his priorities is regulatory reform: “We will work to make America prosperous again,” Thune said at a news conference after his election, “by streamlining the bureaucratic apparatus and repealing costly Biden-Harris regulations.”

Thune itself is relatively wealthy. More remarkable is the fact that, despite being a small-government conservative, virtually every dollar he has ever earned has come from the government. Since graduating from business school in 1984, the now 63-year-old appears to have worked exclusively in government, government-related nonprofits, or lobbying. His biggest fortune today, how Forbes estimates it is his federal pension and his federal retirement account. In addition, a house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, worth around half a million dollars and some diversified investments worth between $330,000 and $1,000,000 complete his financial picture. Add everything and Forbes estimates he’s worth $3 million today, almost all of it thanks to taxpayers.

Thune was born in 1961 in Pierre, the capital of South Dakota. His father was a Navy pilot in World War II and later a teacher at Thunes High School; his mother was a librarian. Thune traveled to California to get his bachelor’s degree from Biola University, then returned and earned an MBA from the University of South Dakota in 1984. That same year he married his wife Kimberley, also from South Dakota.

The bride and groom were soon shipped to Washington DC (and eventually had two daughters). Kimberly worked for South Dakota Senator Larry Pressler and then for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Thune, meanwhile, began his lifelong political career with South Dakota’s other senator, James Abdnor, whom he had met years earlier at a high school basketball game. Abdnor was defeated by Democrat Tom Daschle in 1986, but was immediately appointed head of the Small Business Administration by President Ronald Reagan and brought Thune into the executive branch.

In 1989, Thune returned to South Dakota, where he led the state’s Republican Party for two years and then took over as head of the state’s railroad department for another two years. In 1993, he joined the South Dakota Municipal League, a non-profit organization representing South Dakotan cities until 1996. His few years in state government secured him a pension that will pay him about $940 a month starting in 2026, an asset Forbes It is estimated to be worth around $90,000.

In 1996, the then 35-year-old won South Dakota’s only seat in the House of Representatives. The salary was $133,600, more than double the roughly $60,000 he earned at the nonprofit. The money was undoubtedly welcome — the Thunes reported investing between $35,000 and $175,000 when he was running for office, according to financial disclosures from OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that focuses on campaign finance and lobbying research.

According to the information, Thune briefly moved the family to Arlington, Virginia, and in 1997 earned between $5,000 and $15,000 renting out their home in Pierre. However, in October 1998, he purchased a newly built home in Sioux Falls for $219,000. Today, Forbes estimates the 3,250-square-foot home, which has four bedrooms and includes a 1,450-square-foot finished basement and a three-car garage, to be worth about $580,000; Thune still has a mortgage of $50,000 to $100,000.

Thune had promised to serve only three terms in the House, so he ran for the Senate instead in 2002, challenging incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson. Thune only lost 524 votes or 0.15%. So began his brief stint in the private sector, where he founded a lobbying firm called Thune Group, grossing $231,222 in 2004. That figure included $160,000 from Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad, according to OpenSecrets; $40,000 from an IT services company and $20,000 from a biofuel manufacturer. The gravy train didn’t last long, however – Thune ran for South Dakota’s other Senate seat in 2004 and managed to unseat Daschle, the incumbent Democratic caucus chairman and the same man who defeated his former boss Abdnor 18 years earlier.

Thune has not had to face an election campaign since then, ran unopposed in 2010 and won more than two thirds of the vote in 2016 and 2022. His steady job, which today comes with a salary of $174,000, helped him rise to the top Republican position in the Senate; In 2019 he became Conference Whip or alternate. The years in government also increased the value of his federal pension, which Forbes It is estimated to be worth around $750,000 today. And assuming he contributes regularly and receives matching funds, his Thrift Savings Plan — the federal equivalent of a 401(k) — is probably worth about $1 million.

The roughly $1.85 million in retirement savings, around half a million in home equity, and a diversified investment portfolio of between $330,000 and $1 million add up to about $3 million, almost all of which is in one form or another is due to government work. The exception is his wife Kimberley’s IRA, which is believed to be funded by her work as an executive at Sanford Health Plan, the second-largest health insurer in the Dakotas. A spokesman for Thune declined to comment on the review.

Thune attributes his conservative politics to his parents’ “Midwestern values,” telling an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011 that “because of my upbringing, I believe in things like limited government, fiscal responsibility and personal accountability.”

If Thune becomes majority leader in January, he will receive a raise from $174,000 to $193,400. The increase will help offset the increased demands of the office, including managing his caucus’s relationship with a mercurial billionaire president who has already threatened to bypass the Senate if it does not confirm his Cabinet nominees. “The American people delivered a decisive victory for President Trump and Senate Republicans,” Thune said on the Senate floor on November 14. “And now the real work begins – implementing our agenda.”

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