WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving party leader in the upper chamber’s history, announced Thursday that he will not seek re-election in 2026.
In a parting floor speech, McConnell (R-Ky.) recounted how his journey from interning for former Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) to leading the Republican conference for 18 years fulfilled “a childhood dream.”
“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate. Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business right here,” McConnell said in the address, which coincided with his 83rd birthday.
“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.”
McConnell revealed that he made the decision not to run last year and had communicated that to his conference after stepping down as Senate leader following the 2024 election.
First elected in 1984, the Kentucky senator navigated the realignment of the Republican Party’s coalition — from the interventionist and limited-government approach of President Ronald Reagan to the isolationist and economically populist leanings of President Trump.
“Here every debate over agriculture or infrastructure or education or taxes is downstream of the obligations of national security,” he said in his Senate speech. “Every question of policy here at home is contingent on our duty to provide for the common defense.”
“Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s determination, the work of strengthening American hard power was well underway when I arrived in the Senate,” he went on.
“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.”
McConnell also leaves behind a legacy of having completely remade the US Supreme Court, handing it a conservative majority during the first Trump administration with the installation of three justices — after having blocked Merrick Garland’s appointment under President Barack Obama.
“I certainly didn’t expect to have three Supreme Court justices,” he told the New York Times in a 2020 interview after the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
“At the risk of tooting my own horn, look at the majority leaders since [Lyndon Johnson] and find another one who was able to do something as consequential as this.”
An aide told the Times that the then-Senate majority leader confided in Trump of Barrett’s confirmation: “This will be the hardest fight of my life.”
But McConnell broke with the 45th president over Trump’s “rigged” election claims that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — and has voted against some of the 47th commander-in-chief’s cabinet nominees at the start of his second term.
“To the disappointment of my critics, I’m still here on the job,” the Kentuckian boasted in his final words on the floor, hinting at exerting further influence over his party and the White House during his final years in office.
McConnell also thanked his wife, Elaine Chao, who served as Trump’s transportation secretary during his first term, for her “leadership and wise counsel,” calling her “the most seasoned campaign aide in modern history.”
“Her devotion to me and to Kentucky is a lot more than I deserve,” he added.
McConnell has faced health obstacles that bookended his rise to power — including a childhood battle with polio that left his left leg paralyzed.
More serious freeze-ups and falls in recent years left him with bruises, broken ribs and at times forced him to use a wheelchair, but those went unmentioned in Thursday’s speech.
Within minutes, former Kentucky GOP gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron, an ex-McConnell aide, announced he was running for his former boss’s seat in the Senate.
