U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell files papers with Secretary of State to run for seventh term

Kentucky Today

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell filed his papers at the Secretary of State’s office in Frankfort on Friday to seek a seventh term in office.

Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron, a former staffer in McConnell’s office, and State Treasurer Allison Ball, who won re-election to a second term in November, signed the candidacy papers.

Speaking to reporters, McConnell said he is in a unique position as Senate Majority Leader, “There are four Congressional leaders and I am the only one of the four who are not from New York or California. What I do is look out for Middle America, and in particular my favorite state in Middle America, Kentucky.”

McConnell touted some of his accomplishments in the past year, “Legalization of industrial hemp, which gives us the opportunity to have something which we hope someday will be as important as tobacco used to be for Kentucky agriculture.”

Others, according to McConnell, include tackling the opioid crisis, with over $240 million coming to Kentucky due to his involvement; $87 million for the University of Kentucky, which he says is the largest grant in their history; eliminating a possible $35 million tax bill from the Spanish government for North American Stainless Steel, due to a treaty that hadn’t been passed.

“There are a whole litany of things I’ve been able to make a difference on for the Commonwealth, as a result of being in the position I am in,” McConnell said. “We’ve only been in this position one other time, when Alben Barkley was Majority Leader during FDR’s Administration.”

McConnell’s political past includes interning under Sen. John Sherman Copper while still in college, serving as an aide to then-U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, a Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford and returned to Kentucky where he won the race for Jefferson County Judge-Executive, a post he held from 1977 until election to the U. S. Senate in 1984.

He graduated from Louisville duPont Manual High School and with a political science degree from the University of Louisville. He earned his law degree at the University of Louisville.