The News
Democrats didn’t exactly celebrate the news on Wednesday that Mitch McConnell would step down as Senate GOP leader later this year. Instead, they fretted about whether his successor would be more closely aligned with Donald Trump.
“McConnell has shown good judgment several times on Trump’s extreme positions,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, told reporters. “I hope that whoever succeeds him will [too] if Trump is still on the scene.”
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Kadia’s view
It was probably not where Democrats saw themselves ending up when it came to McConnell: actively anxious about his departure from power. He was in some ways second only to Trump as a progressive bogeyman after he stymied President Obama’s agenda and then remade the Supreme Court into a 6-3 conservative juggernaut under Trump.
But importantly, McConnell didn’t back Trump’s election conspiracy after 2020, and Trump never forgave him for it. And with Congress struggling to keep the lights on, let alone fund shared priorities like Ukraine aid or pass a right-leaning immigration bill, nostalgia for his steady hand was already breaking out.
“Wherever Trump goes, it turns into the Jerry Springer show and that’s what’s happened in the House,” Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. told reporters, adding, “They’re not my leadership, you know? But I hope they do have somebody that’s reasonable, that allows us to be productive.”
It didn’t hurt that McConnell went against type under Biden, encouraging bipartisan talks that led to some of his signature legislation on infrastructure and high-tech manufacturing.
Long-standing speculation about who will succeed McConnell has pointed to the so-called “three Johns”: Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., all of whom are mostly perceived as similarly aligned with McConnell. Recently Steve Daines, R-Mont., the current chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has been floated as a potential contender.
But senators from the hard-right faction of the party are also being thrown around as possible successors. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. unsuccessfully challenged McConnell for the Senate leadership position in 2022, winning the support of 10 out of 50 Republican senators.
Some Democrats hesitated to weigh in on a potential new leader for fear they’d influence their GOP colleagues — in the wrong direction.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone by praising them,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii told Semafor.
Notable
Forbes chronicled the simmering feud between McConnell and Trump, which accelerated after Jan. 6.