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Senator Mitch McConnell announced he will not run for re-election next year, bringing an end to a decades-long career for a Republican leader who marshaled his party through multiple administrations with a singleminded focus on power that enraged his critics and delighted his allies.
The Associated Press broke the news of McConnell’s retirement on Thursday, which marked the Republican senator’s 83rd birthday. McConnell formally announced his retirement in a Senate floor speech on Thursday.
“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell said.
“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.”
The announcement comes one year after McConnell said he would step down as Senate Republican leader after nearly two decades in the post, making him the longest-serving Senate party leader in US history. McConnell became Republican leader in 2007, after first joining the Senate in 1985.
“One of life’s most under-appreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said last year. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”
Senator John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, has since taken over as head of the conference. McConnell indicated he would still serve out the rest of his term, but his decision to relinquish the leadership role spurred speculation about his potential retirement.
Thune praised McConnell’s “remarkable service to the Senate, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and our nation”, saying his predecessor’s legacy would “remain a lasting reflection of his steady vision, determination, and service to the country he loves” in a statement released on Thursday.
“Over decades of tireless work, his mastery of Senate procedure, commitment to the institution, and dedication to the rule of law have shaped the course of American governance for generations to come,” Thune said.
“His leadership has strengthened the Senate’s role as a deliberative body and delivered historic achievements, from advancing the judiciary to championing Kentucky’s interests.”
But McConnell’s “mastery of Senate procedure” has stoked severe censure from Democrats, who accused him of exploiting chamber rules to advance his political agenda. That criticism reached a fever pitch in 2016, when McConnell relied on Republicans’ Senate majority to block Barack Obama’s supreme court nominee, Merrick Garland, from receiving a hearing.
At the time, McConnell argued it would be inappropriate to consider a nominee to a lifetime appointment in a presidential election year. And yet, when liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died less than two months before the 2020 presidential election, McConnell did not hesitate to fill her seat with Donald Trump’s nominee.
In his 2020 memoir A Promised Land, Obama described McConnell as a shrewd tactician who used every tool at his disposal to paint the Democratic president’s proposals as “partisan, controversial, radical – even illegitimate”.
“Short, owlish, with a smooth Kentucky accent, McConnell seemed an unlikely Republican leader. He showed no aptitude for schmoozing, backslapping, or rousing oratory,” Obama wrote in his memoir. “But what McConnell lacked in charisma or interest in policy he more than made up for in discipline, shrewdness, and shamelessness – all of which he employed in the single-minded and dispassionate pursuit of power.”
In recent weeks, McConnell has appeared more willing to directly challenge Trump, sparking intense criticism from the president. McConnell has repeatedly voted against Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks – including Robert F Kennedy Jr, the new secretary of health and human services, and Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense – and denounced the president’s pardons of January 6 insurrectionists.
“No one should excuse violence – and particularly violence against police officers,” McConnell said of the pardons.
Trump has returned the fire, suggesting McConnell had stepped down as Republican leader because he was “not equipped mentally” for the job and accusing him of letting the party “go to hell”.
In the remarks on Thursday, McConnell indicated he would not change his ways and would instead use his final months in office to send a message about America’s place on the global stage.
“Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s determination, the work of strengthening America’s hard power was well under way when I arrived in the Senate,” McConnell said.
“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’s Senate seat is expected to remain in Republican hands, as he won his last re-election in 2020 by roughly 20 points. Daniel Cameron, the former Kentucky attorney general who lost a gubernatorial race in 2023, has already indicated he will campaign for the seat, and the representative Andy Barr said he also might seek the Republican nomination.
Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky who was re-elected in 2023, will almost certainly face pressure to enter the race. But even the widely popular governor would face an uphill climb to win the seat, as Republicans have held both of Kentucky’s Senate seats since 1999.
