Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced on Thursday he will not be seeking reelection next year at the end of his term, bringing to a close a four-decade career in the Senate.
“Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of my lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time,” McConnell said in a floor speech. “My current term in the Senate will be my last.”
“Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s determination, the work of strengthening American hard power was well underway when I arrived in the Senate,” he continued. “But since then, we’ve allowed that power to atrophy. And today, a dangerous world threatens to outpace the work of rebuilding it. So, lest any of our colleagues still doubt my intentions for the remainder of my term: I have some unfinished business to attend to.”
The Republican, who made the announcement on his 83rd birthday, was the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, spending nearly 20 years leading the GOP conference in the upper house through multiple presidential administrations, including a stint from 2015 to 2021 as Senate Majority Leader.
John Thune of South Dakota was recently elected to replace McConnell as Senate Majority Leader in the new Congress.
McConnell, first elected in 1984, spent his final years in office clashing with Donald Trump, becoming one of the rare members of the party to split with the GOP standard-bearer.
The senator was the sole Republican to oppose the Trump administration’s nominations of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. McConnell cited his own experience of polio as one of his reasons for not supporting Kennedy, a longtime conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer.
McConnell also opposed the nomination of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
These stances earned fierce condemnations from Trump, who earlier this month accused McConnell of letting “the Republican party go to hell.”
“If I didn't come along, the Republican party wouldn't even exist right now,” Trump said. “Mitch McConnell never really had it. He had an ability to raise money because of his position as leader, which anybody could do.”
The rift began long before Trump’s reelection, however.
McConnell broke with many in his party and accepted Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. He put further distance between himself and the MAGA core by declaring Trump “morally responsible” for the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
At the same time, McConnell also helped deliver Trump’s impeachment acquittal in the Senate over the Capitol riot.
Prior to the 2020 election, McConnell helped set the stage for a key part of Trump’s legacy.
In late 2020, the senator helped secure Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court roughly a week before the presidential election, after opposing President Obama’s election-year nomination of Merrick Garland to the high court four years earlier.
The first Trump administration also passed its signature set of tax cuts while McConnell led the Senate GOP.
In addition to a complicated relationship with the president, McConnell’s final act also saw the Kentuckian battle a series of health problems and concerns about his fitness to serve.
McConnell reportedly suffered multiple falls at the Capitol in recent weeks and was later pictured being pushed in a wheelchair.
In 2023, McConnell also alarmed observers when he froze and appeared unable to answer a question at a press event in Kentucky.
McConnell’s final term sees Republicans once again holding unified control of both houses of Congress and the White House.
The Trump administration, however, has concentrated most of its political capital outside of the legislature, instead preferring to use Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to slash spending and cancel contracts without waiting for congressional input.
