Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s relationship with President Trump has always been complicated. But his own political future now depends on him.
McConnell, who has led the Senate GOP conference since 2007, worked to block Trump from winning the Republican nomination for president in 2016, but the Kentucky Republican is now a staunch ally. Although he still manages to distance himself from some of the president’s comments on Twitter.
McConnell often touts his role over the past three-and-a-half years confirming more than 200 federal judges nominated by Trump. But during McConnell’s Republican National Convention endorsement of the president last month, he focused on Trump’s fight for Middle America and said he is proud to work alongside him.
“President Trump knows he inherited the first generation of Americans who couldn’t promise their children a better life than their own,” McConnell said. “He has made it his mission of this administration to change that. I know because I work beside him every day.”
McConnell is running for reelection to the Senate seat he first won in 1984 and is ahead in polls against Democrat Amy McGrath. He’s also fighting to hold onto a slim Senate majority. The GOP controls the majority by a margin of 53-47, and polls suggest Democrats could win enough races to regain the gavel.
With Trump at the top of the ticket and likely to influence down-ballot races, McConnell’s own political future is now closely tied to the president’s. McConnell is promoting Trump’s agenda as one aligned with the GOP fight for the middle class.
“As the only leader in Washington not from either New York or California, I consider it my responsibility to look out for Middle America,” McConnell said at the RNC. “This election is incredibly consequential for Middle America.”
While McConnell publicly frowns on Trump’s Twitter habit, he indicated his admiration for the president’s tough stance against opposition to and criticism of an agenda that has largely pleased the GOP.
“Like President Trump, we won’t be bullied by a liberal media intent on destroying America’s institutions,” McConnell said in August. “We will stand our post on behalf of the millions of Americans whose stories aren’t told in today’s newspapers, whose struggles are just as real. We will continue to support American families as we defeat the coronavirus and return our economy to the envy of the world.”
When Republicans controlled all of Congress during Trump’s first two years in office, McConnell helped usher through tax cuts and other regulatory roll-backs as well as some money for the southern border wall the president promised during his campaign.
With Democrats in control of the House and likely to maintain it in November, McConnell is promoting Trump and the Senate GOP as a firewall against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat and liberal who wants to reverse the tax cuts, expand Obamacare, and impose other left-wing agenda items.
