Mitch McConnell is the United States Senate Republican Leader. He is the longest-serving Senate Republican Leader in American history, unanimously elected to lead the conference eight times since 2006.

From 2015 to 2021, McConnell served as Senate Majority Leader. He is only the second Kentuckian to ever be Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. The first, Senator Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.

Senator McConnell has served, always with the unanimous vote of his colleagues, as the Republican Leader since the 110th Congress. He is the longest-serving Senate Republican Leader in the history of the United States. McConnell previously served in leadership as the Majority Whip in the 108th and 109th Congresses and as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.

First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell the longest-serving senator in Kentucky history. He made history as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat an incumbent Democrat in 1984 and was the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968. On November 4, 2014, he was elected to a record sixth term with broad support across Kentucky, winning 110 of the Commonwealth’s 120 counties.

McConnell graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences where he served as student body president. He also is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.

McConnell worked as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and Deputy Assistant Attorney General to President Gerald Ford.

Before his election to the Senate, he served as judge-executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he commenced his Senate term on January 3, 1985.

McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees. He is the proud father of three daughters.

McConnell is married to Secretary Elaine L. Chao, the 18th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Secretary Chao previously served for eight years as President George W. Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Labor. She is also the former president of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps.