Mitch McConnell

He was married to Sherrill Redmon in 1968 whom he divorced in 1980, after having three children. He then went on to marry Elaine Chao, former Secretary of Labour under George W. Bush, in 1993 and Secretary of Transportation under Donald Trump.

In 2003, he went through a triple bypass heart surgery due to arterial blockages that showed up during a medical examination. He is a devoted Baptist and has published a book titled ‘The Long Game’ in 2016, which covers his personal life and career in politics.

His is known to be one of America’s wealthiest senators after his father-in-law gifted him a large sum when his mother-in-law passed away.

He was born as Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr on February 20, 1942 in Sheffield, Alabama, US, to Addison Mitchell McConnell and Julia Shockley. He is of Scottish, Irish and English decent. He was initially brought up in Athens.

He suffered from polio at the age of two and was treated at the Warm Spring Institute for which his family had to spend a substantial sum of money. He recovered from his illness by the age of five due to his mother’s devotion and efforts of his physiotherapist. He even went on to become a talented baseball player.

His family moved to Georgia when he was eight years old and later relocated to Louisville, where he studied at the DuPont Manual High School. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree with honours in political science from the University of Louisville in 1964. He was the president of the Student Council and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

He later did his law from the University Of Kentucky College Of Law, where he was again elected as president of the Student Bar Association. He has maintained a close association with his alma mater and actively supports their sports teams.

He enlisted in the US Army Reserve at Louisville, Kentucky, in March 1967 and had to be discharged on medical grounds after five weeks of training at Fort Knox due to optic neuritis in August 1967.

He started his political career by interning with Senator John Sherman Cooper in 1964. He later assisted Senator Marlow Cook and was Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford. Having gained experience in the field, he was elected as the Jefferson County Judge/Executive in 1977 and again re-elected in 1981.

In 1984, he was elected to the US senate by a narrow margin against Walter Dee Huddleston of the Democratic Party. He was the first Republican to win in Kentucky since 1968 and the only Republican Senate challenger to win that year, despite Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in the presidential elections.

In 1990, he again had a narrow victory over former Louisville Mayor, Harvey I. Sloane, by just 4.4% votes. His campaigns were marked by witty posters and interviews that resulted in a more comfortable victory over Steve Beshear in 1996 and Lois Combs Weinberg in 2002.

He again had a narrow victory against Bruce Lunsford in 2008 but came back with a massive majority against Matt Bevin in 2014.

He was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 elections. He was elected as Majority Whip in the 108th Congress in 2003 and was re-elected in 2004. He became the Minority Leader when the Republicans lost control of the Senate in 2006 and came back as the Senate Majority Leader in 2014. During the period that he was a minority leader he made it clear that his aim was not to let President Obama win a second term.

He has received the Kentucky Life Science Champion Award for promoting innovations in the life science sector.