Former Senate majority chief Mitch McConnell will not run for re-election in 2026
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority chief who helped Republicans remake the U.S. Supreme Courtroom and in addition influenced how political campaigns are financed, introduced Thursday that he wouldn’t search an eighth time period in workplace.
“Seven instances my fellow Kentuckians have despatched me to the Senate,” McConnell stated, as aides lined the again chamber and a number of other senators listened from seats. “Day-after-day in between, I have been humbled by the belief they’ve positioned in me to do their enterprise right here. Representing our commonwealth has been the honour of a lifetime. I cannot search this honour an eighth time. My present time period within the Senate might be my final.”
The transfer — which got here on McConnell’s 83rd birthday — was extensively anticipated.
McConnell has endured a number of well being challenges up to now two years. On two events, he was unable to finish ready remarks as aides scrambled to assist him, and he has suffered multiple fall — together with in December, when he suffered a sprained wrist.
He introduced final 12 months he would not search his get together’s management position within the Senate after 17 years on the helm. He was Senate majority chief from 2015 to 2021, a time period that encompassed the tip of Barack Obama’s two-term presidency, in addition to everything of Donald Trump’s tumultuous first time period in workplace.
Helped lock in conservative-led Supreme Courtroom
McConnell helped be certain that Trump would nominate three Supreme Courtroom justices.
Late in Obama’s time period, after the demise of conservative justice Antonin Scalia, McConnell refused to schedule a committee listening to for the president’s nominee, Merrick Garland. McConnell cited Obama’s standing as a final-year president, in addition to a Nineteenth-century state of affairs he noticed as a precedent.
The courtroom carried on with eight justices till Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch early in his first time period.
After Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh succeeded the retiring Anthony Kennedy, the sudden demise of liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 noticed McConnell flip the script from the Garland state of affairs. Throughout a big COVID-19 wave and with payments languishing within the Senate, McConnell reconvened the chamber as a substitute to make sure conservative Amy Coney Barrett could be confirmed earlier than the 2020 election.
Democrats howled at what they noticed as McConnell’s hypocrisy, however had been powerless to cease Coney Barrett’s elevation to the bench.
The 6-3 conservative courtroom has made quite a lot of landmark rulings, together with on abortion in 2022 and the topic of presidential immunity final 12 months.
Voted to acquit Trump, twice
McConnell and Trump usually clashed on coverage, with the president taking to social media every now and then to mock the Republican chief as “Previous Crow” and “the worst negotiator.”
However McConnell twice voted to acquit Trump as he confronted impeachment, even after he condemned him as “virtually and morally accountable” for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s prime Republican, excoriated Donald Trump on Saturday for the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, however defended his vote to acquit him on the impeachment trial.
“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell stated within the chamber days later. “They had been provoked by the president and different highly effective individuals, and so they tried to make use of concern and violence to cease a selected continuing of the primary department of the federal authorities which they didn’t like.”
McConnell argued that Trump could not be impeached as he was already out of the presidency by the point of the Senate’s impeachment trial, however seven different Republicans noticed match to convict. Trump staved off impeachment, paving the best way for his unbelievable political comeback.
Whereas McConnell interned for a U.S. congressman and labored as a legislative aide for a senator in his 20s, he returned to Kentucky and was little identified in D.C. when he was first elected in 1984, upsetting two-term Democratic Sen. Walter (Dee) Huddleston.
Earlier than Trump, McConnell spearheaded efforts to loosen the faucets of marketing campaign spending, in the end culminating within the Supreme Courtroom’s landmark 2010 Residents United ruling, which lifted limits on impartial spending by firms and labour unions.
Critics have argued that the Residents United ruling helped unleash a torrent of darkish cash into U.S. election campaigns.
The Republican was additionally a defender of George W. Bush’s determination to invade Iraq.
Lately, McConnell has been one of the crucial vocal in his get together to advertise arming Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, placing him at odds with Trump and plenty of MAGA Republicans.
“Because of Ronald Reagan’s dedication, the work of strengthening American arduous energy was properly underway after I arrived within the Senate,” McConnell stated in his ready remarks on Thursday. “However since then, we have allowed that energy to atrophy. And immediately, a harmful world threatens to outpace the work of rebuilding it.”
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Voted in opposition to 2 Trump appointees
Late final 12 months, after the Republicans regained management of the Senate as a part of the Trump-led sweep of the U.S. election, the get together’s senators selected John Thune, of South Dakota, to function majority chief.
To date in 2025, McConnell has been one of many few Republicans to vote in opposition to confirming Trump nominees, rejecting Pete Hegseth as defence secretary and Robert F. Kennedy as well being secretary. Kennedy’s historical past of anti-vaccine statements troubled McConnell, who endured a extreme bout of polio as a toddler, earlier than a vaccine was out there.
Each Hegseth and Kennedy had been in the end confirmed to serve in these roles.
McConnell at present has the tenth-longest tenure of any U.S. senator, a listing headed by Robert Byrd’s greater than 51 years in workplace, representing West Virginia. Ought to McConnell serve out the rest of this time period, he’d transfer as much as seventh on the record, at 42 years.
McConnell gave reward Thursday to his second spouse, Elaine Chao, because the “final teammate and confidante.” Chao served as labour secretary beneath George W. Bush and transportation secretary beneath Trump.
She resigned from the Trump cupboard after the Capitol riot, however was not too long ago amongst his appointments to the John F. Kennedy Heart for the Performing Arts as he took over as chair.
Kentucky might be amongst 33 Senate races in 2026. Whereas McConnell’s get together has to defend 20 of these seats, most have been reliably Republican in recent times.
Kentucky hasn’t despatched a Democrat to the Senate this century.
