Sen. Mitch McConnell will not seek reelection in 2026

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. − Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has spent nearly half a century in the nation's Capitol shaping Republican priorities while thwarting Democratic policies, will not seek reelection when his term expires next year.

The Kentucky Republican, who turned 83 on Thursday, took to the Senate floor shortly after the announcement to give a farewell speech. More than a quarter of senators, including at least a half dozen Democrats, sat at their desks to listen to the longest-serving Senate party leader in American history announce his retirement.

"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."

McConnell has been one of the most influential political leaders of his era, joining the U.S. Senate in 1984 and serving as the Republican leader in the chamber from 2007 through 2024 before giving up the position to Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. Thune and the new GOP Whip, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., sat nearby as McConnell spoke on the floor Thursday.

When he concluded, several senators rushed over to the desk where he'd been speaking. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, were the first to embrace him, and he began to softly cry. With an arm around each, he turned to those assembled and quipped, to laughter: "These are the new moderates." The three have been among the few willing to speak out against some of President Donald Trump's early executive actions and the only three Republicans to vote against any of his cabinet nominees.

While Collins and Murkowski have long been considered centrists, McConnell's recent votes against a handful of Trump nominees come after a lifetime of reliable partisanship and a staunchly conservative voting record.

McConnell's legacy is tied inextricably to the federal courts, particularly the current tilt of the U.S. Supreme Court. For years, the Republican stalwart has made it a mission to install young, conservative-minded judges on the bench while blocking Democratic nominees.

He spoke of that legacy during his floor speech, saying senators are trusted to appoint the federal judiciary, "to be the final check on the assembly of power in courts, beyond the reach of representative politics, and to ensure that the men and women who preside over them profess authentic devotion to the rule of law above all else."

In 2016, McConnell notoriously blocked then-President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He justified blocking Obama's choice, Merrick Garland, from receiving a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying that in a presidential election year the voters should have a "voice in the filling of this vacancy."

That shrewd move earned McConnell enmity among Democrats, who argued it irrevocably damaged the nomination process, which both sides had argued was becoming too politicized.

Leading up to the 2020 election, however, McConnell telegraphed that he would be open to filling a Supreme Court vacancy during Trump's re-election bid. He argued that time around it was OK to confirm a new justice when the Senate and White House are controlled by the same party.

In October 2020, the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett by a 52-48 vote, a month after liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and within days of the presidential election, giving the high court its current 6-3 conservative split.

Democrats dominated Kentucky when McConnell was first elected to federal office. McConnell has since been a key player in the Republican Party's rise in Kentucky — the GOP now holds all but one U.S. congressional seat along with supermajorities in the state House and Senate.

His influence nationally and locally has waned, though, during President Donald Trump's term in power. McConnell and Trump have a famously icy relationship — the pair didn't speak for several years following the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which McConnell said Trump incited — and the senator has frequently broken from the president at times when their interests have not aligned.

McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, served as Transportation secretary in Trump's first administration, but she resigned after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. Trump has subsequently called Chao racist names on social media.

Since Trump returned to office, McConnell has voted against several of his cabinet picks, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Still, all three were eventually confirmed with overwhelming GOP support, and Trump blistered the senator as a "bitter guy" who personally opposes the president.

McConnell nodded at this role during his floor speech.

"On this floor, there is no place to hide from the obligations of Article One," he said, the portion of the United States Constitution that designates Congress' role as the body that makes laws, funds policies, and raises money through taxes. Nor "the Senate's unique relationship with (the judiciary) or our role in equipping the powers of (the president.)"

In what may be an implicit rebuke of Trump's threat to abandon support for Ukraine's self-defense against Russia, McConnell spoke about another part of his hoped-for legacy: Fighting to maintain the United States' role as a defender of democracy abroad through a strong military and diplomatic relationships.

"The hopes and dreams of every American are tied up in our ability to protect and defend the nation and its interests. Every family traveling abroad, and every worker and small business owner whose livelihood depends on foreign trade – they depend in turn on the credibility of America’s commitments to friends and the strength of her threats to enemies," he said.

McConnell said that power has been allowed to "atrophy" since the era of former President Ronald Reagan. "So lest any of our colleagues still doubt my intentions for the remainder of my term: I have some unfinished business to attend to," he said.

Health scares, too, have followed McConnell in recent years. In two separate instances in 2023 he froze up while speaking with reporters, and he's suffered several falls, using a wheelchair at times as a precaution.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Reach Lucas Aulbach, at laulbach@courier-journal.com.