Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has announced he will not seek reelection after more than four decades in office.

McConnell, who turned 83 Thursday, announced that he would not run for reelection to an eighth term in a speech on the Senate floor. After describing the opportunity to represent Kentucky in the Senate for over 40 years as “the honor of a lifetime,” McConnell told his colleagues, “my current term in the Senate will be my last.” McConnell’s term is scheduled to expire at the conclusion of the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2027. 

McConnell served as the top Senate Republican for 18 years before stepping down at the conclusion of the previous 118th Congress. He served as Senate Minority Leader from 2007-2015 and again from 2021-2025. He was the Senate Majority Leader from  2015-2021. 

As McConnell spoke Thursday, he expressed “immense gratitude at the opportunity to take part in the consequential business of the Senate and the nation.” Following his remarks, the entire chamber gave him a round of applause.

McConnell’s tenure as Senate majority leader is best remembered for his role in shaping the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died nine months before the 2016 presidential election, McConnell opted not to hold confirmation hearings for then-President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland. 

The senator addressed his decision in an op-ed published the day Obama picked Garland as his choice to replace Scalia. “The next Supreme Court justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the court and our country for a generation, and the American people deserve a voice in such a momentous decision,” McConnell wrote.

McConnell’s remarks addressed his point that because of the close proximity to the 2016 presidential election, the next president should be able to fill the vacancy caused by Scalia’s death.

The replacement of Scalia — appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan — with Garland was expected to tilt the balance of the Supreme Court to the Left. Republican Donald Trump ultimately won the 2016 presidential election and selected Neil Gorsuch as his choice to replace Scalia. 

When Democrats attempted to filibuster Gorsuch to ensure he wouldn't receive the 60 votes required for confirmation, McConnell invoked the “nuclear option.” This enabled Gorsuch to secure a spot on the court with support from a simple majority of 51 senators. Eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees ultimately worked and Gorsuch ended up filling the seat. 

In the summer of 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. When sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh threatened to derail the nomination, McConnell denounced efforts by those he referred to as a “mob” to intimidate senators into voting against Kavanaugh by leaking their home addresses.

After Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed, McConnell told Fox News opinion host Laura Ingraham that “the mob was not able to intimidate the Senate.”

Two years later, long-serving Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a progressive, died a month-and-a-half before the 2020 presidential election. Trump selected Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to replace Ginsburg. 

While McConnell had adopted the view that American voters should have the opportunity to weigh in on the makeup of the Supreme Court if a vacancy occurs close to a presidential election four years earlier, he opted to hold confirmation hearings for Barrett because of what he characterized as a mandate in the form of an expanded Republican majority following the 2018 midterm elections. The Senate confirmed Barrett, replacing a key member of the court’s progressive bloc with a conservative. 

Although McConnell’s role in transforming the Supreme Court from a body with five Republican-appointed justices and four Democratic-appointed justices to an institution with six justices appointed by Republican presidents and three appointed by Democrat presidents remains an integral part of his legacy, he's recently emerged as the most consistent Republican opponent of some of Trump’s cabinet nominees.

McConnell was one of three Republican senators to oppose U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s confirmation, as well as the only Republican senator to vote against Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

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