‘A different seat in the chamber’: What’s ahead for Mcconnell in the Senate
WASHINGTON — Before Mitch Mcconnell could come to terms with his exit plan, he had to win a campaign within himself.
The Senate Republican leader’s second freeze-up last August — in which he fell silent for more than 30 seconds before cameras — had both shaken his fragile mortality and steeled his headstrong resilience. He resolved to prove to himself — and the world — he could recover to full strength.
When the Kentucky Republican eventually felt good about his health at the end of November, according to a longtime adviser, it allowed Mcconnell to begin soberly confronting the two issues that would define his 2024: How to sunset his tenure as leader and how to close his fracture with an ascendant former — and possibly future — president.
The Mcconnell aide insists the questions were separate — that the Kentuckian’s decision to relinquish power wasn’t related to Donald Trump’s reemergence as his party’s presidential nominee. But it’s hard to ignore the parallel tracks of the twin decisions.
Mcconnell, now 82, began drawing up his plan of how he wanted to vacate leadership in January, nearly the same time he instructed his premier political aide, Josh Holmes, to begin a rapprochement with Trump that would lead to his endorsement eight weeks later. And Mcconnell will leave his leadership post this November, shortly following a presidential election that could once again place Trump in the White House.
“I think he has signaled the leader of the party is Donald Trump, not Mitch Mcconnell,” said Brian Ballard, a veteran Republican lobbyist and fundraiser in Washington.
The “Old Crow,” as Trump called him, is bowing to two factors beyond his control: Advancing age and an enduring realignment of the GOP.
‘Gas in the tank,’ but how much?
Mcconnell still has eight months left in his record 18-year run as Senate leader, “enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics,” as he mentioned on the Senate floor during his Feb. 28 announcement.
Capitol Hill watchers believe the early disclosure of his choice was intended to release the irrefutable tension with the Trump-aligned wing of the party that is younger, brasher and less concerned with the upper chamber’s seniority system and genteel traditions.
“This is a generational shift Congress-wide. You’ve got the old guard, a lot of them are moving on,” said Ryan Taylor, a former Senate Republican aide to Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and senior vice president at Forbes Tate Partners in Washington. “House Democrats just went through this. It’s just Senate Republicans’ turn.”
But others are openly wondering whether Mcconnell has instantly rendered himself a lame duck, surrendering the hammer of long-term consequences for increasingly defiant caucus members.
“Does letting the tension out … is that a release valve for people or does it actually just kind of make him a bigger and bigger punching bag over the next six months where it’s harder to get anybody to really follow his lead?” asked former Capitol Hill aide Brendan Buck on his “Control” podcast.
The more likely truth is that Mcconnell’s power over his 49-member caucus has already severely diminished, as most recently evidenced by the 26 Republicans who cast votes against the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel, a cause he’s framed as existential to U.S. security. The bill managed to clear the Senate on Feb. 13, thanks to Democrats, but has not received a vote in the Republican-led House, despite Mcconnell’s public pleadings.
“He is basically a dead duck,” said Michael Williams, an associate professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at Syracuse University.
“The last of a dying breed. The internationalist GOP is a thing of the past. … The young bucks, like J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley are not going to tow the same global American leadership line as Mcconnell, (John) Mccain, Bill Frist and Trent Lott.”
Another truth is that once lawmakers resolve this year’s appropriations process and wrestle with Tiktok, the summer months will be devoid of much legislating, as campaigning becomes the priority, not only back home, but within the Capitol’s halls. That’s when a divided Republican caucus begins to suss out who they want to succeed Mcconnell.
Longtime Mcconnell deputies and friends, Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas, are the early favorites for leader. But the younger,
His slow-rolling departure will leave a cavernous gap in Kentucky politics in the decade to come, with no successor, however immediately capable, able to muster anything close to Mcconnell’s seniority or institutional knowledge.
anti-mcconnell faction is already rattling the cage for bigger change.
Last week, Rand Paul even floated himself as a contender posting an online unscientific poll showing overwhelming support for Kentucky’s junior senator. Put aside the fact that the vote for Republican leader is determined by senators, Paul called his survey’s result “a wake-up call for the establishment: their influence dwindles beyond D.C.”
It was an early warning that many Republicans are already eager to move past the Mcconnell era and that Mcconnell’s successor will have to operate differently in order to attain unity in a fractious caucus.
A marriage of convenience with Trump
Three years after calling Trump “practically and morally responsible for provoking” the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S., Mcconnell had tasked Holmes to find a pathway toward reconciliation between two men who couldn’t be more different temperamentally.
More precisely, he wanted Holmes to see if he could arrive at a place where if Mcconnell lent his support to the former president, Trump would respond with niceties, not negativity.
While Mcconnell’s perfunctory endorsement of Trump in early March is what captured headlines — and stoked ire from critics — underreported is what Mcconnell gleaned from the bargain: Unity on their preferred candidates in Senate races.
The Mcconnell-trump breach caused dissidence in races during the 2022 cycle, when Republicans again fell short of reclaiming a majority. More than anything else, Mcconnell sought to avoid a divide on the 2024 map, where there are majority-making opportunities in Ohio, Montana, West Virginia, Michigan and Maryland.
It might have been untenable for him to stay mum on Trump through November 2024, but his greater goal of leaving his successor a Senate majority was intrinsically tethered to singing from the same songbook as the former president.
“It’s the only thing he cares about,” said the aide.
It took eight weeks of negotiations between Holmes and Trump campaign manager Chris Lacivita, but they arrived at a place where the principals’ statements were not particularly warm, but sufficient for a marriage of convenience.
“It should come as no surprise,” Mcconnell said in his written statement March 6, acting as if his blessing was never in doubt.
“Thank you, Mitch. I look forward to working with you,” Trump replied on the social media platform, Truth Social, hours later.
The goal is a functional relationship between their teams, not a personal one with each other.
Mcconnell and Trump still haven’t spoken since late 2020, and aides said there was no immediate plan for them to do so.
Mitch-a-palooza ‘25 to Kentucky’s open seat in ‘26
Even among Mcconnellites, there have been divergent interpretations of what Mcconnell actually said out loud.
While the assumption gelled that Mcconnell’s announcement was a signal he wasn’t running in 2026, some allies indicated they never heard that.
“I have not seen any indication of him staying that,” a former top aide in his Senate office said. “Presumably some other time he’ll have more to say about 2026.”
Mcconnell did not explicitly say it in his Feb. 28 Senate speech, but an aide confirmed he would not run for reelection to an eighth term in 2026, when he’ll be 84. A spokesperson in Mcconnell’s Senate office declined to elaborate beyond Mcconnell’s speech.
His slow-rolling departure will leave a cavernous gap in Kentucky politics in the decade to come, with no successor, however immediately capable, able to muster anything close to Mcconnell’s seniority or institutional knowledge.
But the twilight of his career could offer one last boon for the commonwealth, as Mcconnell will be relieved from navigating conference personalities and acting as a heat shield during political maelstroms.
Beginning in 2025, he’ll be a rank-andfile member “in a different seat,” as he stated, but not without power.
Boasting the second-most seniority in the GOP conference behind only Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, 90, he’s expected to make a play for chairman of the all-powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. He has long made clear to colleagues and friends that robust committee work would be the curtain call to a Senate career that would span 42 years, if his health holds.
“If he wants to be the 800-pound gorilla on the Appropriations Committee, he can be. And I suspect he’ll put a particular focus on defense appropriations,” said Scott Jennings on his “Flyover Country” podcast. “We’re going to have Mitch-apalooza. He’s being rereleased into the wild.”
Jennings, one of Mcconnell’s longest-serving outside political confidantes, runs a Louisville-based public relations firm and is a commentator for CNN.
Unlike Paul, Mcconnell takes great pride in unfurling tens of millions of dollars for airport upgrades, military training facilities and wastewater treatment plants across Kentucky. The last two years could allow him to widen the spending spigot.
But almost as soon as the 2024 election is resolved and Mcconnell’s successor is elected, attention will turn to the once-in-generation open Senate seat in Kentucky.
Reps. Andy Barr, Jamie Comer and Thomas Massie, as well as former attorney general Daniel Cameron and current Attorney General Russell Coleman, are obvious possibilities.
State Auditor Allison Ball and State Sen. Julie Raque Adams have also been named in conversations with Republicans.
But just like everything else in Republican politics these days, the contours of the race could ultimately be determined by Trump, if he’s reelected.
There’s some irony in the argument that only if Trump is defeated again by President Joe Biden this November will Mcconnell be able to exercise more power over Kentucky’s future, if he so chooses.
“If Trump loses, I would argue Mcconnell could make the case that he was right on the tone and tenor and politics and could enhance his standing in Kentucky,” said Neil Chatterjee, a former policy adviser to Mcconnell and Lexington native.
“Either run himself or help someone that he favors succeed him in the Senate.”