What might a post-Mitch McConnell GOP look like?

It would not be an overstatement to say that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been one the most consequential conservative lawmakers of the past century, if not the whole of American history. Over the course of his seven terms representing Kentucky in the United States Senate, McConnell has helped lead Republicans to major victories on tax policy, election finance laws, and, perhaps most significantly, helped shape a deeply conservative judiciary whose impact will be felt for generations. As the longest-serving Senate leader in history, McConnell is an institution unto himself, wielding the power of the position with sledgehammer force, and scalpel-like precision to push conservative priorities by any legislative means necessary.

While McConnell's name has become virtually synonymous with Senate Republicans as a whole, a series of public health scares coupled with a barrage of criticism from former President Donald Trump have called into question the 81-year-old lawmaker's future in the GOP, and in politics at large. Though McConnell has vowed to finish his tenure as minority leader through at least 2024, and complete his term in office through 2026, there is a growing sense that he is in his final act as a politician. And if that is indeed the case, what could the Republican party look like without Mitch McConnell at its helm? 

What the commentators said

Though the details of any resignation should be left to McConnell himself, who "deserves a large measure of deference," the editors of the conservative National Review nevertheless insisted that it's time for the man they've dubbed "a legend" to step aside. While a "transition doesn’t need to happen urgently," they wrote in late August, "the wheels should be turning."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"For his sake, and the sake of his colleagues" McConnell should "go out on his own terms," editor Rich Lowry told CNN after the piece was published.

Those terms, however, may already have been preempted. An effort to replace McConnell as Republican leader "is well underway " one GOP senator told The Hill on condition of anonymity. McConnell's recent health episodes "accelerates that." Among those senators most likely to replace McConnell are the "three Johns" according to The New York Times: Thune, Cornyn, and Barrasso, of South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming respectively. All three Johns are, or were, members of the Republican Senate leadership team, with Thune having replaced Cornyn as party whip in 2019, and Barrasso serving as chair of the party conference. 

"If there’s a favorite McConnell heir, no one is saying," according to Politico, which noted that both Thune and Cornyn have publicly committed to supporting McConnell for as long as he's in office. 

Naming the elephant in the room, CNN pointed out that it's the trio's respective relationships with Trump that could play the crucial role in their future. Together they represent "a sliding scale of acceptance" toward the former president. Trump has called Thune a "RINO," accused Cornyn of being "The Stiff," and lambasted Barrasso as a McConnell "flunky" regardless of Barrasso's attempts to be "more careful not to alienate Trump," CNN reported. 

No matter who replaces McConnell to lead Republicans, it's "unclear" whether his successor will have the "influence and authority to keep Senate Republicans together" ahead of a potentially contentious election season, New York magazine's Ed Kilgore said. Moreover, in the event of a second Trump presidency, it's not likely that any of McConnell's successors "can resist or even temper Trump’s destructive plans" for his return to the White House. Democrats have come to accept McConnell as a "bulwark against the party’s MAGA lurch, The Daily Beast reported. "You might prefer the devil you know instead of the devil you don’t," one Democratic official explained. 

What next?

Should McConnell step down early from both his leadership role and the Senate entirely, Republicans can rest easy that their control over his Kentucky seat will remain in the party's hands. In 2021 the state's GOP-controlled legislature changed the rules of vacancy appointments so that the governor — currently Democrat Andy Beshear — is required to name a successor from the departing figure's own party. Beshear, for his part, has promised "not to sensationalize" any hypothetical vacancy, telling USA Today that McConnell has promised "to serve out his term and I fully believe him."