John Thune

Republican · SD · U.S. Senate

Bio

John Randolph Thune is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from South Dakota, a seat he has held since 2005. A member of the Republican Party, Thune has served since 2025 as Senate majority leader and Senate Republican leader. From 1997 to 2003, Thune served as the U.S. representative for South Dakota's at-large congressional district.

Full bio on Wikipedia →

Record of service

In office: 27.7 years · not continuous, returned 2005
Chambers: House 6y, Senate 21.7y
First took office: 1997 (7 terms)
Seniority: 15 of 100 by time served
Age: 65
Senate class: 3 · senior senator

Leadership

Assistant Senate Majority Leader · 2019–2021
Senate Majority Whip · 2021–2021
Senate Minority Whip · 2021–2025
Senate Majority Leader · 2025–present

District offices

Rapid City, SD · 605-348-7551
Sioux Falls, SD · 605-334-9596
Aberdeen, SD · 605-225-8823

FEC filings ↗OpenSecrets ↗GovTrack ↗C-SPAN ↗Ballotpedia ↗Vote Smart ↗House History ↗Facebook ↗Instagram ↗X/Twitter ↗YouTube ↗

Service history, offices and identifiers from unitedstates/congress-legislators (public domain). Years served sum each term rather than subtracting the first start date, so a break in service is not counted as time in office.

Reported net worth

2018

$308k

2019

$365k

2020

$455k

2021

$712k

2022

$429k

2023

$620k

2024

$687k

2025

$690k

Most recent filing (2025)

Assets: $330k – $1.1M
Liabilities: $10k – $15k
Net worth: $315k – $1.1M
Since 2018: +$382k

From annual financial disclosures, which report every asset and debt as a bracket — so these are ranges, and the figure shown is their midpoint. A primary residence is not a reportable asset while its mortgage is a reportable debt, which pushes some members negative. How this is calculated →

Overall lean (DW-NOMINATE)

LeftCenterRight

Issue profile

Taxes & Fiscal

R+0.56

Healthcare

R+0.56

Immigration & Border

R+0.92

Guns

R+1.00

Abortion & Reproductive Rights

R+0.71

Environment & Energy

R+0.86

Crime & Policing

R+0.69

Defense & Veterans

R+0.66

Economy & Labor

R+0.83

Foreign Policy & Trade

R+0.63

Civil Rights & Social

R+0.52

Education

R+0.93

Government & Democracy

R+0.56

Judicial & Executive Nominations

R+0.82

Each issue runs left ↔ right, scored from how the member voted on bills tagged to that issue (−1…+1). Issues with too few votes are blank. Overall lean uses DW-NOMINATE.

How they score against the parties

John Thune's voting record compared with each party's national platform, issue by issue — the same similarity score used across the site.

94%Closest

65%

31%

22%

Democratic Socialists (DSA)

18%

Communist Party USA

17%

On the political map

John Thune (the large ringed dot) among every current member of Congress and the party platforms.

Party platforms:Communist Party USADemocratic Socialists (DSA)Green PartyDemocratic PartyRepublican PartyLibertarian Party

Each small dot is a current member (Dem · Rep); the larger dots are party platforms — click one for its closest members. Economic axis: taxes, healthcare, labor, energy. Social axis: abortion, guns, immigration, civil rights, crime.

Do you vote like Thune?

Answer a few questions on the issues and see which members of Congress — and which party — actually line up with you.

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Caucuses & committees

Where Thunesits in Congress's own organization — each group's lean is computed from its members' voting records. Explore them all on the caucuses and committees pages.

Committees

Most and least aligned members

Treating Thune's 14 issue scores as a vector, cosine similarity measures whether two voting records point the same way (+100%) or in opposite directions (−100%) — the colleagues whose records align most and least with theirs.