WASHINGTON (AP) – As a child, Mitch McConnell contracted and largely beat polio. He was student president in high school, the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky law school. He’s never lost a general election and has spent 30 years in the Senate scaling Republican leadership ranks.
Half a century after his first Washington stint as an intern, the methodical Kentucky Republican is now poised to achieve his long-cherished goal: becoming Senate majority leader.
McConnell was re-elected to a sixth term Tuesday as his party gained at least seven Senate seats – enough to control the chamber in next year’s Congress. McConnell, 72, is certain to be chosen by his GOP colleagues for the Senate’s most powerful job and will join House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in confronting Barack Obama with his presidency’s first Republican-controlled Congress.
“He’s right at the doorstep of the position he’s aspired to all his life,” said former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
For McConnell, who’s been Senate minority leader for eight years, his ascension comes just in time. The 2016 election cycle looks tough for Republicans, who will defend 24 of 34 Senate seats.