Earlier this week, Senator McConnell (R-KY) announced that he would be stepping down from leadership in November.
The first person to announce a run for leadership was Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), who would more or less be an extension of McConnell, and that did not sit well with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Talking Points…
- McConnell stepping down
- Paxton teases Senate run
- Analysis
The time for McConnell to step down was probably about four years ago, but he finally got the message and announced this week that he would be leaving party leadership. However, he will finish out his term. If Trump were not the nominee for the GOP, I believe McConnell would have stayed on, but he has no desire to do battle with Trump again if he wins the general election.
So, McConnell announced that he would be leaving his role as Republican Senate leader in November. He stated:
“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter. So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.
“I’m not going anywhere any time soon. However, I will complete my job my colleagues have given me until we select a new leader in November and they take the helm next January.”
McConnell also explained why he was stepping down, or at least what he wants people to believe is the reason. His sister-in-law passed away recently, which caused him to reflect on his career. McConnell stated:
“When you lose a loved one, particularly at a young age, there’s a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process. Perhaps it is God’s way of reminding you of your own life’s journey to prioritize the impact of the world that we will all inevitably leave behind.
“I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer.”
After McConnell announced that he would be stepping down, Senator Cornyn was the first to announce that he would be running for the leadership position. Cornyn was one of McConnell’s trusted soldiers in the Senate, so the expectation would be that he would legislate like McConnell, which is not sitting well with Texas AG Ken Paxton.
So, Paxton teased that he may consider a run for the Senate to defeat Cornyn and remove him from the equation. He posted on X:
“It will be difficult for @JohnCornyn to be an effective leader since he is anti-Trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026. Republicans deserve better in their next leader and Texans deserve another conservative Senator.”
Paxton also ran a poll on X, with 96.2% of the people responding that Cornyn is not conservative enough to lead Republicans in the Senate.
When McConnell announced that he was running for leadership again after the 2022 cycle, he was challenged by Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who is fully behind Trump, but Scott fell short. Not only that, but McConnell literally laughed at the idea that Scott thought he could get enough votes to oust McConnell from his leadership position.
The point is that Cornyn will get the support of McConnell, which means he will have every established senator in the Senate voting for him as the leader, which will likely be more than enough for Cornyn to take the leadership position. The only way to ensure that Cornyn does not get that role is to beat him in the primary, which Paxton hopes to do.
