McConnell on Senate bipartisanship in his first speech as Majority Leader. Recorded January 7, 2015
Addison Mitchell McConnell III[1] (/məˈkɒnəl/mə-KON-əl; born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and attorney serving as theseniorUnited States senator fromKentucky, a seat he has held since 1985. McConnell is in his seventh Senate term and is thelongest-serving senator in Kentucky history. He served from 2007 to 2025 as the leader of theSenate Republican Conference, including two stints as minority leader (2007 to 2015 and 2021 to 2025), and was majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest-servingSenate party leader in U.S. history.
In 2015, 2019 and 2023,Time listed McConnell as one of the100 most influential people in the world.[4][5] On February 28, 2024, McConnell announced that he would step down as the Senate Republican Conference Leader in January 2025, but would serve the remainder of his Senate term.[6][7][8]An internal election to fill the post of Senate Republican Leader was held on November 13, in which South Dakota senatorJohn Thune was selected.[9] On February 20, 2025, McConnell announced he would not run for an eighth Senate term in2026 and would retire from politics. This came after increasing concerns about his health and ability to continue serving.[10][11]
Early life and education (1942–1967)
McConnell was born on February 20, 1942, to Julia Odene "Dean" (née Shockley) and Addison Mitchell "A.M." McConnell II[12] at Colbert County Hospital (now Helen Keller Hospital) inSheffield, Alabama, and grew up inAthens, Alabama, where his grandfather, Robert Hayes McConnell Sr., and his great-uncle, Addison Mitchell McConnell, owned McConnell Funeral Home.[12][13] He is ofScots-Irish andEnglish descent. His ancestor James McConnell fought on the American side in theAmerican Revolutionary War.[12][14]
In 1944, at the age of two, McConnell's upper left leg was paralyzed by apolio attack.[12][15] He and his mother were living with an aunt inFive Points, Alabama, at the time, and he received treatment at theRoosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation.[16] The treatment potentially saved him from being disabled for the rest of his life.[17] McConnell said his family "almost went broke" because of costs related to his illness.[18]
In 1950, when he was eight, McConnell moved with his family from Athens toAugusta, Georgia, where his father, who was in theArmy, was stationed atFort Gordon.[19]
In March 1967, shortly before the expiration of his educationaldraft deferment upon graduation from law school, McConnell enlisted in theU.S. Army Reserve as a private at Louisville.[27] This was a coveted position because the Reserve units were mostly kept out of combat during theVietnam War.[27][28]: 11–12 His first day of training atFort Knox,Kentucky, was July 9, 1967, two days after taking thebar exam, and his last day was August 15, 1967.[21][27] Shortly after his arrival he was diagnosed withoptic neuritis and deemed medically unfit for military service, and was honorablydischarged.[b][27][29] McConnell's political opponents have repeatedly made an issue of his brief time in service during his electoral campaigns.[27][29]
In 1971, McConnell returned to Louisville, where he worked onTom Emberton's campaign forgovernor of Kentucky, which was unsuccessful.[30] McConnell attempted to run for a seat in the state legislature but was disqualified because he did not meet the residency requirements for the office.[30] He then worked for the Louisville law firm Segal, Isenberg, Sales and Stewart for a few years.[31][30] During the same period, he taught a night class on political science at the University of Louisville.[26][32][33]
In 1977, McConnell was elected theJefferson County judge/executive, the top political office inJefferson County, Kentucky, at the time, defeating incumbent Democrat Todd Hollenbach III, 53% to 47%. He was reelected in 1981 against Jefferson County Commissioner Jim "Pop" Malone, 51% to 47%, outspending Malone 3–1, and occupied the office until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1984.[24][30]
U.S. Senate (1985–present)
Past official portraits
1985
2001
2006
2009
2011
PresidentRonald Reagan in a meeting with McConnell in the Oval Office, March 1987PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush with McConnell andElaine Chao in February 1991Mitch McConnell in 1992PresidentGeorge W. Bush shakes hands with McConnell at Bush's first inauguration, January 2001.
In his early years as a politician in Kentucky, McConnell was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican.[24][28] Over time he became more conservative.[24][28] According to one of his biographers, McConnell transformed "from a moderate Republican who supported abortion rights and public employee unions to the embodiment of partisan obstructionism and conservative orthodoxy on Capitol Hill."[28] McConnell has widely been described as an obstructionist.[36]
From 1997 to 2001, McConnell chaired theNational Republican Senatorial Committee, the body charged with securing electoral victories for Republicans.[37][38] On February 12, 1999, he was one of 50 senators to vote toconvict and remove Bill Clinton from office.[39] He was first electedMajority Whip in the108th Congress.[40] Senate Majority LeaderBill Frist did not seek reelection in the2006 elections. In November, after Republicans lost control of the Senate, they elected McConnell minority leader.[41] After Republicans took control of the Senate following the2014 Senate elections, McConnell became theSenate majority leader.[42] In June 2018 he became the longest-serving Senate Republican leader in U.S. history.[43] McConnell is the second Kentuckian to serve as a party leader in the Senate (afterAlben W. Barkley led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949)[20] and the longest-serving U.S. senator from Kentucky.[44]
McConnell has a reputation as a skilled political strategist and tactician.[45][46][47][48] This reputation dimmed after Republicans failed to repeal theAffordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2017 during consolidated Republican control of government.[49][50][51][52]
McConnell regularly obtainedearmarks for businesses and institutions in Kentucky until Congress banned the practice in 2010.[53] He has been criticized for funding "temporary patches" to Kentucky's long-term healthcare problems while simultaneously opposing and obstructing national programs that seek to improve healthcare more systematically, such asObamacare andMedicaid expansion.[33]
Relationships with presidential administrations
Obama
As the leading Republican senator, McConnell confronted and pressured other Republican senators who were willing to negotiate with Democrats and the Obama administration.[54] According toPurdue University political scientist Bert A. Rockman, "pure party line voting has been evident now for some time ... but rarely has the tactic of 'oppositionism' been so boldly stated as McConnell did."[55] According toUniversity of Texas legal scholarSanford Levinson, McConnell learned that obstruction and Republican unity were the optimal ways to ensure Republican gains in upcoming elections after he observed how Democratic cooperation with the Bush administration onNo Child Left Behind andMedicare Part D helped Bush's2004 reelection.[56] Levinson noted, "McConnell altogether rationally ... concluded that Republicans have nothing to gain, as a political party, from collaborating in anything that the president could then claim as an achievement."[56] A number of political scientists, historians, and legal scholars have characterized McConnell's obstructionism andconstitutional hardball as contributors to democratic erosion in the United States.[57][58][59][60]
In October 2010, McConnell said, "the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Asked whether this meant "endless, or at least frequent, confrontation with the president", McConnell said, "if [Obama is] willing to meet us halfway on some of the biggest issues, it's not inappropriate for us to do business with him."[61] According to political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, "Facing off against Obama, [McConnell] worked to deny even minimal Republican support for major presidential initiatives—initiatives that were, as a rule, in keeping with the moderate model of decades past, and often with moderate Republican stances of a few years past."[62]The New York Times wrote early in Obama's administration that "on the major issues—not just health care, but financial regulation and the economic stimulus package, among others—Mr. McConnell has held Republican defections to somewhere between minimal and nonexistent, allowing him to slow the Democratic agenda if not defeat aspects of it."[63] The Republican caucus threatened repeatedly to force the United States to default on its debt, McConnell saying he had learned from the2011 debt-ceiling crisis that "it's a hostage that's worth ransoming".[64][65]
McConnell worked to delay and obstructhealth care reform andbanking reform, two of the most notable pieces of legislation that Democrats navigated through Congress early in Obama's tenure.[66][67] Political scientists noted that "by slowing action even on measures supported by many Republicans, McConnell capitalized on the scarcity of floor time, forcing Democratic leaders into difficult trade-offs concerning which measures were worth pursuing. ... Slowing the Senate's ability to process even routine measures limited the sheer volume of liberal bills that could be adopted."[67]
Use of the filibuster
One of McConnell's most common tactics as minority leader to delay or obstruct legislation and judicial appointments was thefilibuster. A filibuster is an attempt to "talk a bill to death", forcing Senate leadership to abandon a proposed measure instead of waiting out the filibuster―or at least to delay the measure's passage. In the Senate, any senator may speak for unlimited duration unless a 60-person majority votes to invokecloture, or end debate, and proceed to a final vote. Political scientists have referred to McConnell's use of the filibuster as "constitutional hardball", referring to the misuse of procedural tools in a way that undermines democracy.[62][65][58][68]
Political scientists Hacker and Pierson describe the rationale behind McConnell's filibusters: "Filibusters left no fingerprints. When voters heard that legislation had been 'defeated', journalists rarely highlighted that this defeat meant a minority had blocked a majority. Not only did this strategy produce an atmosphere of gridlock and dysfunction; it also chewed up the Senate calendar, restricting the range of issues on which Democrats could progress."[62]
In 2013, Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reideliminated the filibuster for all presidential nominations except the Supreme Court. By that time, nearly half of all votes to invoke cloture in the history of the Senate had occurred during Obama's presidency.[59] In April 2017, Senate Republicans led by McConnell eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to end debate on the nomination ofNeil Gorsuch.[69][70][71] In August 2019, McConnell wrote an editorial forThe New York Times strongly opposing the elimination of the filibuster on legislation.[72]
McConnell initially endorsed fellow Kentucky senatorRand Paul for president in 2016. Paul withdrew from the race after the Iowa caucuses, and McConnell endorsed presumptive nomineeDonald Trump on May 4, 2016.[73] But McConnell disagreed with Trump on many occasions. In May 2016, after Trump suggested that federal judgeGonzalo P. Curiel was biased against Trump because of hisMexican heritage, McConnell said: "I don't agree with what [Trump] had to say. This is a man who was born in Indiana. All of us came here from somewhere else." In July 2016, after Trump criticized the parents ofHumayun Khan, aMuslim-American soldier who was killed in Iraq, McConnell said, "All Americans should value the patriotic service of the patriots who volunteer to selflessly defend us in the armed services." On October 7, 2016, following theDonald TrumpAccess Hollywood controversy, McConnell said, "As the father of three daughters, I strongly believe that Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere, and take full responsibility for the utter lack of respect for women shown in his comments on that tape."[74] In private, McConnell reportedly expresses disdain for Trump[75] and "abhors" his behavior.[76]
In October 2017, White House chief strategistStephen Bannon and other Trump allies blamed McConnell for stalling the Trump administration's legislation. In response, McConnell citedNeil Gorsuch's confirmation to the Supreme Court to show that the Senate supported Trump's agenda.[77]
AfterJoe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, McConnell at first refused to recognize Biden as the winner.[78][79][80] In his public statements, McConnell did not repeat any of Trump's false claims of voter fraud, but did not contradict them, ignoring questions about evidence and instead arguing that Trump had the right to challenge the results.[79][81][82] At the same time that McConnell refused to recognize Biden, he celebrated Republicans who won their Senate and House races in the same elections.[79][81][83]
Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories ... nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale—the massive scale—that would have tipped the entire election. ... If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We'd never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power at any cost.[85]
Later that day, he described thestorming of the Capitol building (which occurred while the Electoral College votes were being counted) as a "failed insurrection" that "tried to disrupt our democracy".[86]
On April 10, 2021, Trump called McConnell a "dumb son of a bitch". Trump added: "I hired his wife. Did he ever say thank you?"[87] Trump has continued to attack McConnell in personal terms since then, but McConnell has not responded publicly.[88][89]
On November 5, 2019, as theHouse of Representatives began public hearings on the impeachment of President Trump, McConnell said, "I'm pretty sure how [an impeachment trial is] likely to end. ... If it were today, I don't think there's any question. It would not lead to a removal."[90]
On December 14, 2019, McConnell met with White House counselPat Cipollone and White House legislative affairs directorEric Ueland. Later that day, he said that for Trump's impeachment trial, he would be in "total coordination with the White House counsel's office" and Trump's representatives.[91][92] He also said there was "no chance" the Senate would convict Trump and remove him from office.[93]
On December 17, 2019, McConnell rejected a request to call four witnesses for Trump's impeachment trial because, according to McConnell, the Senate's role was to "act as judge and jury", not to investigate. Later that day, McConnell told the media: "I'm not an impartial juror [in this impeachment trial]. This is a political process. There's not anything judicial about it."[94][95]
After Trump's acquittal, McConnell was noted for his ability to block witnesses, to secure Trump's acquittal, and to maintain party unity during the impeachment process. Commentators noted that he had kept Republican senators "marching in lockstep" throughout the process.[96][97][98]
On January 12, 2021, it was reported that McConnell supported impeaching Trump for his role in inciting the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, believing it would make it easier for Republicans to purge the party of Trump and rebuild the party.[99] On January 13, despite having the authority to call for an emergency meeting of the Senate to hold the Senate trial,[failed verification] McConnell did not reconvene the chamber, claiming unanimous consent was required.[100] He called for delaying the Senate trial until after Biden's inauguration.[101] Once the Senate trial started, McConnell voted to acquit Trump on February 13, 2021, saying it was unconstitutional to convict a president who was no longer in office.[102]
The vote to convict was a bipartisan majority (57–43) but not enough to pass the two-thirds threshold.[103] After the vote, McConnell lambasted and condemned Trump in a 20-minute speech on the Senate floor, saying he believed Trump was guilty of everything the House managers alleged.[104][105] He said:
Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty ... There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day ... If President Trump were still in office, I would have carefully considered whether the House managers proved their specific charge.[106]
He explained why he nonetheless voted to acquit: "Article II, Section 4 must have force. It tells us the President, Vice President, and civil officers may be impeached and convicted. Donald Trump is no longer the president. Clearly that mandatory sentence cannot be applied to somebody who has left office. The entire process revolves around removal. If removal becomes impossible, conviction becomes insensible." Yet he said that Trump "didn't get away with anything yet" since Trump would remain subject to the country's criminal and civil laws.[106]
McConnell has announced he will retire at the end of his term in 2027, when he will be 84 years old.[112]
Biden
McConnell's relationship with the Biden administration has been portrayed in media as one of comity. Biden has described McConnell as "a friend, colleague and 'man of his word.'" McConnell has praised bipartisan legislation they worked on together, and was the only Republican to attend the 2015 funeral of Biden's sonBeau Biden.[113]
In October 2021, McConnell helped pass a bill that extended thedebt ceiling. He convinced 11 Republicans to vote with the Democrats for it, without which the United States would have defaulted on its debts.[114]
Throughout Obama's tenure, McConnell led Senate Republicans in what has been called "a disciplined, sustained, at times underhanded campaign to deny the Democratic president the opportunity to appoint federal judges".[115] In June 2009, after Obama nominatedSonia Sotomayor as associate justice, McConnell andJeff Sessions opined that Sotomayor's 17 years as a federal judge and over 3,600 judicial opinions would require lengthy review and advocated against Democrats hastening the confirmation process.[116] On July 17, McConnell announced that he would vote against Sotomayor's confirmation.[117] In August, McConnell called Sotomayor "a fine person with an impressive story and a distinguished background" but said he did not believe she would withhold her personal or political views while serving as a justice. Sotomayor was confirmed days later.[118]
In May 2010, after President Obama nominatedElena Kagan to succeed the retiringJohn Paul Stevens, McConnell said in a Senate speech that Americans wanted to make sure Kagan would be independent of influence from White House as an associate justice and noted that Obama called Kagan a friend of his in announcing her nomination.[119] McConnell announced his opposition to Kagan's confirmation, saying she was not forthcoming enough about her "views on basic principles of American constitutional law".[120] Kagan was confirmed the next month.[121]
In 2014, Republicans gained control of the Senate, and McConnell became majority leader; he used his new power to start what was considered "a near blockade" of Obama's judicial appointments. According toThe New York Times, Obama's final two years as president saw 18 district court judges and one appeals court judge confirmed, the fewest since PresidentHarry S. Truman. In comparison, the final two years of the presidencies ofGeorge W. Bush,Bill Clinton, andRonald Reagan had between 55 and 70 district court judges each confirmed and between 10 and 15 appeals court judges confirmed.[115] TheLos Angeles Times wrote that McConnell brought about an "extraordinary two-year slowdown in judicial confirmations", detailing 22 confirmations of Obama's judicial nominees, the lowest since Truman in 1951–1952. The number of federal judicial vacancies at the end of Obama's term was more than twice the number at the end of George W. Bush's term.[c][122] In a 2019 interview, McConnell credited himself for the large number of judicial vacancies created in the last two years of Obama's presidency.[91]
On February 13, 2016, Supreme Court justiceAntonin Scalia died.[123] Shortly thereafter, McConnell issued a statement indicating that the Senate would not consider any Supreme Court nominee Obama put forth.[25][124] "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president", McConnell said.[124] On March 16, 2016, Obama nominatedMerrick Garland, a Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to the Supreme Court.[125] Under McConnell's direction, Senate Republicans refused to take any action on the nomination.[126] Garland's nomination expired on January 3, 2017, with the end of the114th Congress.[127]
In an August 2016 speech in Kentucky, McConnell said, "one of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'"[128][129] In April 2018, McConnell said the decision not to act on Garland's nomination was "the most consequential decision I've made in my entire public career".[130] Political scientists and legal scholars called McConnell's refusal to hold Senate hearings on Garland "unprecedented",[131][132] a "culmination of [his] confrontational style",[133] a "blatant abuse of constitutional norms",[60] and a "classic example of constitutional hardball".[65]
In January 2017, President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left after Scalia's death.[134] Gorsuch's nomination was confirmed on April 7, 2017, after McConnell eliminated the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees.[135]
On July 18, 2018, withAndy Oldham's Senate confirmation, Senate Republicans broke a record for largest number ofappeals court judiciaryconfirmations during a president's first two years; Oldham became the 23rd appeals court judge confirmed in Trump's term.[136] McConnell said he considers the judiciary to be the item of Trump's first two years with the longest-lasting impact on the country. The record for the number ofcircuit court judges confirmed during a president's first year was broken in 2017, while the previous two-year record of 22 confirmations took place under PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush.[137] By March 2020, McConnell had contacted an unknown number of judges, encouraging them to retire before the 2020 election.[138][139] He confirmed260 federal judges during Trump's four-year term,shifting the federal judiciary to the right.
In July 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace the retiringAnthony Kennedy as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. McConnell accused Democrats ofcreating an "extreme" distortion of Kavanaugh's record during his hearings.[140] In September 2018,Christine Blasey Ford publicly alleged that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in 1982. After it was reported that Democrats were investigating a second allegation against Kavanaugh, McConnell said, "I want to make it perfectly clear. ... Judge Kavanaugh will be voted on here on the Senate floor."[141] Kavanaugh was confirmed on October 6.[142][143] McConnell said the confirmation process was a low point for the Senate, but also downplayed reports of dysfunction in the Senate; he said claims that the Senate was "somehow broken over this [were] simply inaccurate".[144]
In October 2018, McConnell said if a Supreme Court vacancy were to occur in 2020, he would not repeat his 2016 decision to let the winner of the upcoming presidential election nominate a justice. He argued that because in 2016 the Senate was controlled by a party other than the president's, the 2016 precedent was not applicable in 2020, when Republicans controlled both the presidency and Senate.[145] In September 2020, afterRuth Bader Ginsburg died, he announced the Senate would vote on Trump's nominated replacement.[146] On October 23, McConnell set in place the Senate debate on the confirmation ofAmy Coney Barrett to fill Ginsburg's seat. Barrett was confirmed on October 26.[147]
Government shutdowns
The federal government shut down on October 1–17, 2013, after Congress failed to enact legislation to fund it. McConnell later vowed Republicans would not force the U.S. to default on its debt or shut down the government in 2014, when stopgap funding measures were set to expire. He also said he would not allow other Republicans to obstruct the budget-making process.[148][149]
In July 2018, McConnell said funding for theMexico–United States border wall would likely have to wait until the midterms had concluded. Trump tweeted two days later that he was willing to allow a government shutdown to get funding.[150] Several spending bills were approved that August; the approvals were seen as a victory for McConnell in his attempts to prevent another government shutdown.[151]
Shutdown of 2018–2019
From December 22, 2018, until January 25, 2019, thefederal government shut down when Congress refused to give in to Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in federal funds for aU.S.–Mexico border wall.[152] In December 2018, theRepublican-controlledSenate unanimously passed an appropriations bill without wall funding, and the Republican-controlledHouse of Representatives and Trump appeared likely to approve the bill. After Trump faced heavy criticism from someright-wing media outlets and pundits for appearing to back down on his campaign promise to"build the wall", he said he would not sign any appropriations bill that did not fund the wall.[153]
During this shutdown, McConnell blocked the Senate from voting on appropriations legislation and said it was not his place to mediate between the Senate and Trump.[154][155][156] Privately, McConnell had advised Trump against initiating the shutdown.[25] Democrats criticized McConnell for not putting appropriations legislation up for a vote, noting that the Republican-controlled Senate had unanimously passed an appropriations bill without wall funding and that the Senate could override Trump's veto.[154][155][156]
By January 23, McConnell had blocked four Senate bills to reopen the government and a bill funding the Homeland Security Department through February 8. He called for Democrats to support a Trump administration-backed measure that included $5.7 billion in wall funding, together with a temporary extension of protections forDACA recipients, a Democratic priority.[157] Privately, other Republican senators pressured McConnell to stop blocking appropriations legislation.[158][159]
The shutdown ended on January 25, when Trump signed a three-week funding measure reopening the government until February 15 without funds for a border wall.[160] This was the longest government shutdown in American history.[25][161]
COVID-19 response
In response to theCOVID-19 pandemic, McConnell initially opposed theFamilies First Coronavirus Response Act, calling it a Democratic "ideological wish list".[162][163] He reversed his position when Trump endorsed the proposed package.[164] The bill passed in the Senate by a vote of 90–8.
Speaking on theHugh Hewitt radio show on April 22, 2020, McConnell suggested that states should be able to declare bankruptcy instead of receiving additional COVID-19 aid funds—funds he implied would be used to save insolvent state pension funds instead of for COVID-19 relief. His comments were sharply criticized by various state and local officials. States cannot declare bankruptcy.[168]
After the CARES Act passed, McConnell waited several months before advancing any additional COVID-19 relief measures in the Senate, saying in May, "I don't think we have yet felt the urgency of acting immediately" and that Congress should "[hit] pause" to evaluate how the allocated funds were working before approving more.[169] He was absent from negotiations between congressional Democrats and White House officials for an additional aid package.[170][171][172]
On September 10, 2020, a pared-down COVID-19 relief bill crafted by McConnell failed to pass the Senate because of a Democratic filibuster.[173] Democrats called the bill "completely inadequate" given the scope of the COVID-19 crisis[174] and a partisan maneuver to help Republican senators up for reelection.[175] McConnell called the bill a choice between "do[ing] something" and "do[ing] nothing",[176] and said he was holding the procedural vote to get lawmakers on the record about their willingness to compromise on COVID-19 legislation.[177]
Approval ratings
As the leader of the Senate Republicans, McConnell has received much of the criticism and disapproval that Republicans receive from Democratic voters, receiving near uniform disapproval from left-of-center voters. Furthermore, as a result of his unpopularity with Trump and the more populist base, McConnell has had historically low approval for a senator by the electorate as a whole: a 2012 poll and a 2016 poll each found that McConnell had the lowest home-state approval rating of any sitting senator.[178][179] With a 49% disapproval rate in 2017, McConnell had the highest disapproval rating of any senator.[180]
Senator Mitch McConnell in Kentucky on October 30, 2024
In September 2019, theMorning Consult found that McConnell's approval rating had been underwater since the first quarter of 2017, when it was 44% positive and 47% negative. The worst rating since that time was in the fourth quarter of 2018, when he had a 38% positive rating and a 47% negative rating among Kentuckians.[181] At that time he was briefly not the least popular senator, surpassed byClaire McCaskill andJeff Flake.[182] But as of the second quarter of 2019, McConnell's ratings were 36% positive and 50% negative. He netted −56 among Democrats, +29 among Republicans, and −24 among Independents.[181] An average of polls by the Economist/YouGov, Politico/Morning Consult, and Harvard-Harris from the end of July through August 2019 (7/31–8/27), was 23% favorable and 48% unfavorable (−25.0 spread).[183]
In 2020, according to Morning Consult,Susan Collins edged out McConnell as the least popular senator with a 52% unfavorable rating from Maine voters compared to 50% for McConnell.[184]
Committee assignments
McConnell's committee assignments for the 118th Congress are as follows:[185]
Earlier in his political career, during the 1960s and 1970s, McConnell held moderate stances, including support ofabortions, support ofunions, and support of thecivil rights movement.[196] Following theSupreme Court's ruling inObergefell v. Hodges, McConnell expressed his opposition tosame-sex marriage stating “I’ve always felt that marriage is between one man and one woman and the Supreme Court has held otherwise. That’s the law of the land.”[197]
In1984, McConnell ran for theU.S. Senate against two-termDemocratic incumbentWalter Dee Huddleston. The election race was not decided until the last returns came in, when McConnell won by 3,437 votes out of more than 1.2 million votes cast, just over 0.4%.[198] McConnell was the only Republican Senate challenger to win that year, despiteRonald Reagan's landslide victory in thepresidential election.[199]
McConnell was the first Republican to win a statewide election in Kentucky since 1968, and benefited from the popularity of PresidentRonald Reagan, up for re-election, who was supported by 60% of Kentucky voters in the same year.[45]
In2014, McConnell faced Louisville businessmanMatt Bevin in the Republican primary.[204] The 60.2% won by McConnell was the lowest voter support for a Kentucky U.S. senator in a primary since 1938.[205] He faced Democratic Secretary of StateAlison Lundergan Grimes in the general election, and defeated Grimes, 56.2–40.7%.[206][207]
In the November 2020 general election, McConnell faced Democratic nomineeAmy McGrath, a formerMarine fighter pilot; andLibertarian nominee Brad Barron, a businessman and farmer.[208][209] During the campaign, McConnell and McGrath agreed to one hour-long,socially distanced debate on October 12.[210][211] McConnell was elected to his seventh term on November 3 when he defeated McGrath by nearly 20 percentage points.[212]
McConnell is aSouthern Baptist, baptized at age 8.[213] He was married to his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, from 1968 to 1980 and had three daughters, Porter, Eleanor (Elly), and Claire.[214][215][216] Porter McConnell is the campaign director forTake on Wall Street, a left-wing advocacy coalition.[217][218] Following her divorce from McConnell, Redmon became a feminist scholar atSmith College and director of theSophia Smith Collection.[219][220]
In August 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder in a fall at his Louisville home.[227] In March 2023, he was hospitalized for five days after a fall; he was treated for aconcussion and a minor rib fracture,[228] and did not return to the Senate for almost six weeks.[229] In July 2023, he fell while disembarking from a plane atRonald Reagan Washington National Airport.[230] On December 10, 2024, McConnell fell during a Senate Republican Conference policy luncheon, spraining his wrist and cutting his face.[231] On October 16, 2025, he fell at theUS Capitol Building while beingdoorstepped by an amateur reporter, whose cameraman recorded the incident.[232]
Freezing episodes
On July 26, 2023, McConnell prompted worldwide media reports when he froze, unspeaking, for around 20 seconds while addressing a press conference.[233] He was escorted away by aides, but later returned and said he was "fine".[234] Two days after the incident, his spokespersons said that McConnell would continue in his leadership role; he is the institution's longest-serving party leader.[235] On August 30, 2023, he again froze during a press conference inCovington, Kentucky and was eventually led away by staff.[236] A day later, McConnell released a letter from the attending physician of Congress that said he was "medically clear" to continue his schedule as planned;[237] the letter said that the physician had talked to McConnell and "conferred with his neurology team", but did not indicate that he had physically examined McConnell.[238]
In 2018, theOpenSecrets website ranked McConnell one of the wealthiest members of the U.S. Senate, with a net worth of more than $25 million.[243] His personal wealth grew in 2008, when he and his wife received a gift worth about $5 million to about $25 million from her father,James S. C. Chao, after the death of his wife.[244]
In popular culture
McConnell's detractors have called him by a number of nicknames, including "Moscow Mitch",[245] "Cocaine Mitch",[245] the "Grim Reaper",[188] "Darth Vader",[246] "Rich Mitch",[247] "Nuclear Mitch",[246] "Midnight Mitch",[248] and "Old Crow".[249] McConnell embraces several of them, but he has objected strenuously to "Moscow Mitch".[d][245]
During the 2014 election campaign, McConnell was lampooned for posting campaignB-roll footage online for use by alliedPACs. Various Internet posters satirically interspersed the B-roll with footage fromsitcoms and movies and with popular music. The practice of posting B-roll footage online for use by PACs or of lampooning the B-roll was termed "McConnelling".[254][255][256]
In 2015, 2019, and 2023,Time listed McConnell as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[4][5][257]
^The office of Judge/Executive was first elected in 1977. Hollenbach preceded McConnell in the former position of County Judge.
^Although McConnell has allowed reporters to examine parts of his military record and take notes, he has refused to allow copies to be made or to disclose his entire record, despite calls by his opponents to do so. His time in service has also been the subject of criticism because his discharge was accelerated after his father placed a call to SenatorJohn Sherman Cooper, who then sent a wire to the commanding general at Fort Knox advising that "Mitchell [is] anxious to clear post in order to enroll inNew York University (NYU)". He was allowed to leave post just five days later, though McConnell maintains that no one helped him with his enlistment into or discharge from the reserves. According to McConnell, he struggled through the exercises at basic training and was sent to a doctor for a physical examination, which revealed McConnell's optic neuritis. McConnell did not attend NYU.Cheves, John (October 23, 2008)."McConnell opens military record".Lexington Herald-Leader.Archived from the original on January 5, 2019. RetrievedJanuary 5, 2019.
^According to theCongressional Research Service, on the first day of 2015, Obama had 3.9% of circuit court seats vacant, and 4.9% of district court seats vacant. By the first day of 2017, the figures had risen to 9.5% and 12.8% respectively. The 114th Congress confirmed 28.6% of Obama's circuit and district judge nominees; every other Congress in that research time frame (1977–2018, 95th to 115th Congress) had a confirmation rate of between 53% and 98%."Judicial Nomination Statistics and Analysis: U.S. District and Circuit Courts, 1977–2018"(PDF).Congressional Research Service.Archived(PDF) from the original on July 16, 2019. RetrievedJune 13, 2019.
^Reasons cited for McConnell's opposition to the nickname include "a longstanding resistance to federalcontrol over state elections, newly enacted security improvements that were shown to have worked in the 2018 voting and his suspicion that Democrats are trying to gain partisan advantage with a host of proposals".
References
^McConnell, Mitch (2016)."Chapter One: A fighting spirit".The Long Game: a Memoir. New York, NY: Sentinel. p. 9.ISBN9780399564123.Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. RetrievedJanuary 27, 2020....my mother graduated from Wadley High School in 1937. Soon after graduation, she found her way out of rural Alabama and into Birmingham...It was here that she met A.M. McConnell II.
^abcdeMcConnell, Mitch (2016)."Chapter One: A fighting spirit".The Long Game: a Memoir. New York, NY: Sentinel. p. 9.ISBN9780399564123.Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. RetrievedJanuary 27, 2020.She'd been known her whole life not by her first name, Julia, which she loved, but by her middle name, Odene, which she detested. So in Birmingham she began to call herself Dean, and with no thought of ever returning to Wadley ... James McConnell, from County Down, Ireland, who came to this country as a young boy in the 1760s, went on to fight for the colonies in the American Revolution.
Page, Benjamin; Gilens, Martin (2018).Democracy in America?. University of Chicago Press. p. 158.Archived from the original on September 13, 2018. RetrievedOctober 6, 2018.
Skocpol, Theda; Jacobs, Lawrence R. (2012). "Accomplished and Embattled: Understanding Obama's Presidency".Political Science Quarterly.127 (1):1–24.doi:10.1002/j.1538-165x.2012.tb00718.x.ISSN0032-3195.
Slotnick, Elliot; Schiavoni, Sara; Goldman, Sheldon (2017). "Obama's Judicial Legacy: The Final Chapter".Journal of Law and Courts.5 (2):363–422.doi:10.1086/693347.ISSN2164-6570.S2CID158940942.the major responsibility for the obstruction and delay of Obama judges in the 114th Congress falls to Majority Leader McConnell and the allied leadership in the Republican Senate caucus
Hacker, Jacob; Pierson, Paul (2017).American Amnesia. Simon and Schuster.ISBN9781451667837.Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. RetrievedOctober 6, 2018.
Ginsburg, Tom; Huq, Aziz (2019).How to Save a Constitutional Democracy. University of Chicago Press. p. 126.Archived from the original on December 15, 2018. RetrievedDecember 13, 2018.
Browning, Christopher R."The Suffocation of Democracy".The New York Review of Books.Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. RetrievedOctober 6, 2018.
^abLevitsky, Steven; Ziblatt, Daniel (2018)."How Democracies Die". Penguin Randomhouse.Archived from the original on December 11, 2018. RetrievedMarch 14, 2019.
^Paul Cantanese, McClatchy reporter. (December 21, 2021). "If you can't beat him, ignore him. How McConnell survived a year of Trump's attacks".Lexington Herald-Leader websiteArchived December 24, 2021, at theWayback Machine Retrieved December 22, 2021.
^Tackett, Michael (2024).The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party. New York: Simon and Schuster.ISBN978-1-6680-0584-2.Featuring expert reporting, unprecedented access, and never-before-published revelations,The Price of Power is an inside portrait of exactly that—what it takes to achieve power, maintain it, deploy it, and, finally, watch it slip out of your hands.
^"2014 General Election Results"(PDF).elect.ky.gov. Kentucky State Board of Elections.Archived(PDF) from the original on January 27, 2020. RetrievedJanuary 27, 2020.
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