Mitch McConnell won’t seek reelection in 2026, ending long tenure as GOP power broker
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- McConnell has increasingly found himself out of step with a GOP shifting toward the fiery, often isolationist populism espoused by Trump.
- He set a new precedent for hardball partisan tactics in 2016 by refusing to even give a hearing to President Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he will not seek reelection next year, ending a decades-long tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Trump.
McConnell, the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision to not run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends.
“Seven times my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell said in a speech on the chamber floor. “Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business right here. Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.”
His announcement begins the epilogue of a storied career as a master strategist, one in which he helped forge a conservative Supreme Court and steered the Senate through tax cuts, presidential impeachment trials and fierce political fights. Yet with his powerful perch atop committees, and nearly two years remaining in his term, McConnell vowed to complete his work on several remaining fronts. “I have some unfinished business to attend to,” he said.
Senators from both parties listened as he told them that although there are any number of reasons for pessimism, the strength of the Senate is not one of them. “The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence,” he said.
As he concluded, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who succeeded McConnell as Senate GOP leader, motioned for the audience of senators, staff and Capitol visitors be allowed to applaud, which is usually not allowed under chamber rules.
McConnell, first elected in 1984, intends to serve the remainder of his term ending in January 2027. The Kentuckian has faced a series of medical episodes in recent years, including injuries sustained from falls and times when he froze while speaking.
His announcement comes almost a year after his decision to relinquish his leadership post after the November 2024 election. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a top McConnell deputy, replaced him as majority leader.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, doubling down on his opposition to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, said Sunday that there’s no way the Republican-controlled Senate will hold a confirmation vote — not even after the November election.
McConnell’s looming departure reflects the changing dynamics of the Trump-led GOP. He’s seen his power diminish on a parallel track with both his health and his relationship with Trump, who once praised him as an ally but has taken to criticizing him in caustic terms.
In Kentucky, McConnell’s departure will mark the loss of a powerful advocate and will set off a competitive GOP primary next year for what will now be an open Senate seat. Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, seen as a rising star in his party for winning statewide office in Republican territory, has said he has no interest in the Senate, though he is widely viewed as a contender for higher office.
McConnell, an adherent to Ronald Reagan’s brand of traditional conservatism and muscular foreign policy, increasingly found himself out of step with a GOP shifting toward the fiery, often isolationist populism espoused by Trump.
McConnell still champions providing Ukraine with weapons and other aid to fend off Russia’s invasion, even as Trump ratchets up criticism and falsehoods about the country and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.
McConnell and Trump were partners during Trump’s first term, but the relationship was severed after McConnell blamed Trump for “disgraceful” acts by the president’s supporters in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. A momentary thaw in 2024 when McConnell endorsed Trump didn’t last.
Last week, Trump referred to McConnell as a “very bitter guy” after the senator, who battled polio as a child, opposed vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as the nation’s top health official. McConnell referred to Trump as a “despicable human being” and a “narcissist” in a biography of the senator by the Associated Press’ deputy Washington bureau chief, Michael Tackett.
Before their falling-out, Trump and McConnell pushed through a tax overhaul largely focused on reductions for businesses and higher-earning taxpayers. They joined forces to reshape the Supreme Court when McConnell guided Trump’s three nominees to Senate confirmation, tilting the high court to the right.
No longer in charge, Sen. Mitch McConnell has been speaking his mind.
McConnell set a new precedent for hardball partisan tactics in 2016 by refusing to even give a hearing to Democratic President Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Putting the brakes on the Senate’s “advise and consent” role for judicial nominees, McConnell said the vacancy should be filled by the next president so voters could have their say. Trump filled the vacancy once he took office, and McConnell later called the stonewalling of Garland’s nomination his “most consequential” achievement.
Later, when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died weeks before the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden, McConnell rushed Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation through the Senate, waving off allegations of hypocrisy.
McConnell also guided the Senate — and Trump — through two impeachment trials that ended in acquittals.
In the second impeachment, weeks after the deadly Capitol attack by a mob hoping to overturn Trump’s 2020 reelection defeat, McConnell joined all but seven Republicans in voting to acquit. McConnell said he believed Trump couldn’t be convicted because he’d already left office, but he condemned Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection.
McConnell over the years swung back and forth from majority to minority leader, depending on which party held power. He defended President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and failed to block Obama’s healthcare overhaul.
Schreiner and Freking write for the Associated Press.
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