A much-deserved ‘thank you’ to Sen. Mitch McConnell | WADHAMS | Opinion

For most of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s 18-year tenure as the Senate Republican Leader, he was vilified as an “establishment” do-nothing by Tea Party and MAGA activists.

Throughout that time, whether he was the minority leader or the majority leader, he was the master of Senate rules who did seek compromise with Democrats when he needed to get something passed. But he also was a fierce partisan who took no prisoners on the Senate floor or in Senate races across the nation.

McConnell epitomized the saying by an unknown ancient philosopher “politics ain’t bean bag.”

After Republicans won a solid Senate majority of 53-47 in 2024, McConnell stepped down as the Republican leader. He is the longest serving Senate leader in history. 

During those 18 years, he served twice as Senate minority leader from 2007 to 2015 and from 2021 to 2025, and he was Senate Majority Leader from 2015 to 2021.

If there was one thing that united both Senate Democrats and many conservative activists was their frustration with McConnell’s leadership style — but for much different reasons. Senate Democrats were often flummoxed by his mastery of arcane Senate rules that made him a formidable partisan foe on the Senate floor. Ironically, conservative activists thought he was too accommodating to Senate Democrats and did not fight hard enough.

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Nothing defines McConnell’s effectiveness and steely resolve as majority leader more than what happened when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly died in February 2016.

President Barack Obama, in his final year as president, quickly nominated Merrick Garland, who served on the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals, to succeed Scalia. Obama described Garland as a moderate judge who should be agreeable to both parties.

Majority Leader McConnell made it clear to Obama there would be no action in the Senate on the Garland nomination during the heated 2016 presidential election year. He said the American people needed to have a say in who would replace Scalia by electing a new president to succeed the term-limited Obama, and the new president then could put forth a new nomination in 2017.

Democrats howled, but McConnell remained firm and unmoved. The Garland nomination died on the Senate vine when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, which allowed him to nominate Neil Gorsuch in 2017 who was serving on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

McConnell went on to get 235 federal judges confirmed who were nominated by President Trump, including two more Supreme Court justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, which created a 6-3 conservative court majority.

But it all started with McConnell’s hardball on the Senate floor keeping the Scalia seat open throughout 2016. Had Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in 2016, she would have filled all three of those open seats on the court. As is often said, elections do have consequences.

In conjunction with the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, McConnell moved Trump’s landmark tax-cut legislation into law.

Trump had no more prominent or effective an ally than McConnell when it came to getting judges approved and legislation passed, but their relationship eventually broke down over Trump’s behavior during the Jan. 6, 2021, violent attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s obsession the 2020 election was fraudulent and stolen from him.

Beyond his leadership in the Senate, McConnell was just as effective in helping to elect other Republicans to the Senate. Before he became the Republican leader, he chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee whose sole reason to exist is to help elect Republicans.

More often than not, Republican candidates who lost during McConnell’s tenure were outside the mainstream of their states and squandered winnable races. Who can forget the Republican candidate who had to declare “I am not a witch” or the one who talked about “legitimate rape.”

When former U.S. Rep. John Thune, who lost a Senate election in 2002, decided to challenge the formidable Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota in 2004, there was doubt among many Republicans in Washington, D.C. Thune could win. They felt he could only keep the race close and prevent Daschle from raising money for other Democratic candidates around the nation.

McConnell was the assistant Republican leader in 2004, and he strongly believed Thune could win and devoted himself to that cause along with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at the time.

McConnell was right. Thune upset Daschle, which was the first time a Senate leader was defeated for reelection in 52 years. McConnell’s support was no small part of that victory.

Ironically, McConnell’s leadership successor is now Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Thank you, Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.  He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune in 2004.