Former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell says he won’t run for reelection in 2026, announcing his impending departure from the Senate on Thursday, his 83rd birthday.
Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor that he made the decision not to run again last year. McConnell said he’s never much liked calling attention to Feb. 20, but he figured his birthday is as good a day as any to make the announcement.
“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 a U.S. senator from Kentucky since 1985, and he announced one year ago that he would relinquish his leadership role in the Senate. He was the Senate Republican leader from 2007-2025 and is the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history. McConnell served as majority leader from 2015-2021.
The Kentucky Republican’s retirement from the Senate was widely expected.
McConnell, a polio survivor, has experienced health issues in recent years, including freezing episodes and falls. Those who have spent time around him recently said he’s experiencing some reemergence of polio symptoms that are known to afflict older survivors of the disease. He’s been in a wheelchair since a recent fall in the U.S. Capitol.
“I’ve never lost sight of the fact that without my mother’s devoted care, a childhood encounter with polio could have turned out a lot worse,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “And unless my father had taken a job in the Bluegrass State, my interest in politics might have run a course somewhere else. And if it weren’t for an 11th-hour outside-the-box idea on the campaign trail, my Senate career would have been over before it began. Or that if not for the people of Kentucky, time and again agreeing that leadership delivers, and elected me to send back here, it would have been someone else from somewhere taking that seat at the table where I’ve had a chance to work, strategize, fight and win.”
