89 Facts About Mitch McConnell

Addison Mitchell McConnell III is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky, a seat he has held since 1985.

Mitch McConnell served from 2007 to 2025 as the leader of the Senate Republican Conference, including two stints as minority leader, and was majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest-serving Senate party leader in US history.

Mitch McConnell holds conservative political positions, although he was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican early in his political career.

Mitch McConnell led opposition to stricter campaign finance laws, culminating in the US Supreme Court decision Citizens United v FEC, which partially overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2010.

Mitch McConnell worked to withhold Republican support for major presidential initiatives during the Obama administration, making frequent use of the filibuster, and blocked many of President Obama's judicial nominees, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Mitch McConnell invoked the nuclear option to eliminate the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, after his predecessor Harry Reid had eliminated the filibuster for all other presidential nominations; Trump subsequently won Supreme Court confirmation battles over Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In late 2024, Mitch McConnell wrote an essay on his current view of American power and the foreign policy mistakes of former presidents.

On February 28,2024, Mitch 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.

On February 20,2025, Mitch McConnell announced he would not run for an eighth Senate term in 2026 and would retire from politics.

In 1944, at the age of two, Mitch McConnell's upper left leg was paralyzed by a polio attack.

Mitch McConnell said his family "almost went broke" because of costs related to his illness.

In 1950, when he was eight, Mitch McConnell moved with his family from Athens to Augusta, Georgia, where his father, who was in the Army, was stationed at Fort Gordon.

Mitch McConnell was elected student council president at his high school during his junior year.

Mitch McConnell was president of the Student Council of the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

Mitch McConnell attended the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr.

Mitch McConnell has said his time with Cooper inspired him to run for the Senate later in life.

In 1967, Mitch McConnell graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was president of the Student Bar Association.

In March 1967, shortly before the expiration of his educational draft deferment upon graduation from law school, Mitch McConnell enlisted in the US Army Reserve as a private at Louisville.

From 1968 to 1970, Mitch McConnell worked as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook in Washington, DC, managing a legislative department consisting of five members as well as assisting with speechwriting and constituent services.

In 1971, Mitch McConnell returned to Louisville, where he worked on Tom Emberton's campaign for governor of Kentucky, which was unsuccessful.

Mitch 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.

Mitch McConnell then worked for the Louisville law firm Segal, Isenberg, Sales and Stewart for a few years.

In October 1974, Mitch McConnell returned to Washington to fill a position as Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Ford, where he worked alongside Robert Bork, Laurence Silberman, and Antonin Scalia.

Mitch McConnell served as acting United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs under President Ford in 1975.

From 1997 to 2001, Mitch McConnell chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the body charged with securing electoral victories for Republicans.

Mitch McConnell was first elected Majority Whip in the 108th Congress.

Mitch McConnell has a reputation as a skilled political strategist and tactician.

Mitch McConnell regularly obtained earmarks for businesses and institutions in Kentucky until Congress banned the practice in 2010.

Mitch McConnell 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 as Obamacare and Medicaid expansion.

Mitch McConnell worked to delay and obstruct health care reform and banking reform, two of the most notable pieces of legislation that Democrats navigated through Congress early in Obama's tenure.

Mitch McConnell initially endorsed fellow Kentucky senator Rand Paul for president in 2016.

Paul withdrew from the race after the Iowa caucuses, and Mitch McConnell endorsed presumptive nominee Donald Trump on May 4,2016.

In October 2017, White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon and other Trump allies blamed Mitch McConnell for stalling the Trump administration's legislation.

On December 14,2019, Mitch McConnell met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland.

Mitch McConnell said there was "no chance" the Senate would convict Trump and remove him from office.

On December 17,2019, Mitch McConnell rejected a request to call four witnesses for Trump's impeachment trial because, according to Mitch McConnell, the Senate's role was to "act as judge and jury", not to investigate.

On January 12,2021, it was reported that Mitch 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.

Mitch McConnell called for delaying the Senate trial until after Biden's inauguration.

Once the Senate trial started, Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump on February 13,2021, saying it was unconstitutional to convict a president who was no longer in office.

Mitch McConnell stepped down as Senate Republican leader in 2024, months before the 2024 United States elections.

Mitch McConnell has been described as largely irrelevant in Trump's second term.

Mitch McConnell has voted against three of Trump's cabinet nominees: Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard for the Director of National Intelligence, and Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Mitch McConnell has announced he will retire at the end of his term in 2027, when he will be 84 years old.

In October 2021, Mitch McConnell helped pass a bill that extended the debt ceiling.

Mitch McConnell convinced 11 Republicans to vote with the Democrats for it, without which the United States would have defaulted on its debts.

In May 2010, after President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to succeed the retiring John Paul Stevens, Mitch 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.

Mitch McConnell announced his opposition to Kagan's confirmation, saying she was not forthcoming enough about her "views on basic principles of American constitutional law".

In 2014, Republicans gained control of the Senate, and Mitch McConnell became majority leader; he used his new power to start what was considered "a near blockade" of Obama's judicial appointments.

Shortly thereafter, Mitch McConnell issued a statement indicating that the Senate would not consider any Supreme Court nominee Obama put forth.

Gorsuch's nomination was confirmed on April 7,2017, after Mitch McConnell eliminated the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees.

Mitch McConnell said he considers the judiciary to be the item of Trump's first two years with the longest-lasting impact on the country.

Mitch McConnell confirmed 260 federal judges during Trump's four-year term, shifting the federal judiciary to the right.

Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of creating an "extreme" distortion of Kavanaugh's record during his hearings.

Mitch McConnell said the confirmation process was a low point for the Senate, but downplayed reports of dysfunction in the Senate; he said claims that the Senate was "somehow broken over this [were] simply inaccurate".

In October 2018, Mitch 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.

Mitch McConnell 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.

Mitch McConnell later vowed Republicans would not force the US to default on its debt or shut down the government in 2014, when stopgap funding measures were set to expire.

Mitch McConnell said he would not allow other Republicans to obstruct the budget-making process.

Privately, other Republican senators pressured Mitch McConnell to stop blocking appropriations legislation.

Mitch McConnell reversed his position when Trump endorsed the proposed package.

Mitch McConnell directed Senate Republicans in negotiations for two other COVID-19 response packages: the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 and the CARES Act.

Mitch McConnell's comments were sharply criticized by various state and local officials.

Mitch McConnell was absent from negotiations between congressional Democrats and White House officials for an additional aid package.

On September 10,2020, a pared-down COVID-19 relief bill crafted by Mitch McConnell failed to pass the Senate because of a Democratic filibuster.

Mitch McConnell called the bill a choice between "do[ing] something" and "do[ing] nothing", and said he was holding the procedural vote to get lawmakers on the record about their willingness to compromise on COVID-19 legislation.

Furthermore, as a result of his unpopularity with Trump and the more populist base, Mitch 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 Mitch McConnell had the lowest home-state approval rating of any sitting senator.

Mitch McConnell has taken conservative stances for the past several decades.

Mitch McConnell led opposition against Obamacare, first through efforts to delay or prevent the law's passage, and later to repeal or replace it, including via the American Healthcare Reform Act.

Mitch McConnell has opposed stronger regulations, gun control measures and efforts to mitigate climate change.

Mitch McConnell has criticized proposed legislation by House Democrats such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, and was criticized by Nancy Pelosi for withholding votes on measures passed by the Democratic-controlled House during his time as Senate Majority Leader, including the For the People Act of 2019, the Equality Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Mitch McConnell has supported stronger border security, free trade agreements and reductions in taxes.

Mitch McConnell voted for the Iraq Resolution, which authorized military action against Iraq, and supported the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 in public.

In 1984, Mitch McConnell ran for the US Senate against two-term Democratic incumbent Walter Dee Huddleston.

Mitch McConnell was the only Republican Senate challenger to win that year, despite Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in the presidential election.

Mitch McConnell's campaign was noted for a series of television campaign spots called "Where's Dee", which featured a group of bloodhounds trying to find Huddleston, implying that Huddleston's attendance record in the Senate was poor.

Mitch McConnell's campaign ran television ads warning voters to not "Get BeSheared" and included images of sheep being sheared.

In 2014, Mitch McConnell faced Louisville businessman Matt Bevin in the Republican primary.

Mitch McConnell was married to his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, from 1968 to 1980 and had three daughters, Porter, Eleanor, and Claire.

Porter Mitch McConnell is the campaign director for Take on Wall Street, a left-wing advocacy coalition.

Mitch McConnell's upper left leg was paralyzed during his childhood by polio.

In February 2003, Mitch McConnell underwent a triple heart bypass surgery in relation to blocked arteries, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

On December 10,2024, Mitch McConnell sustained a fall during a Senate Republican Conference policy luncheon, spraining his wrist and cutting his face.

On July 26,2023, Mitch McConnell prompted worldwide media reports when he froze, unspeaking, for around 20 seconds while addressing a press conference.

Mitch McConnell was escorted away by aides, but later returned and said he was "fine".

Two days after the incident, his spokespersons said that Mitch McConnell would continue in his leadership role; he is the institution's longest-serving party leader.

In 1997, Mitch McConnell founded the James Madison Center for Free Speech, a legal-defense organization based in Washington, DC He was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution on March 1,2013.

Mitch McConnell is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

Mitch McConnell has been portrayed by Beck Bennett in sketches on Saturday Night Live.

In 2017, Mitch McConnell was portrayed satirically in South Parks season 21 episode "Doubling Down".