Mitch McConnell should ‘pass the torch’, says leading Republican pollster

It may be time for Mitch McConnell to “pass the torch”, a leading Republican pollster said, after the 81-year-old GOP Senate leader suffered a second apparent freeze while talking to reporters.

“It’s one of the problems that we have with Washington, which is that there is a time to lead and a time to pass on the torch to another generation,” Frank Luntz told CNN.

A spokesperson for McConnell said the senator felt “light-headed” on Wednesday, when he appeared to freeze during questions from reporters in Covington, in his home state of Kentucky, and was eventually escorted away. McConnell would consult a doctor, the spokesperson said.

But the freeze followed a similar incident in Washington in July, when McConnell was speaking at the US Capitol. He said then he had been “sandbagged” – a reference to Joe Biden’s fall at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado in May – and returned to talk to reporters.

On Wednesday, Biden called McConnell “a good friend”, and said he would “try and get in touch with him later this afternoon”.

Biden and McConnell sat together in the Senate for 23 years, after the Kentuckian was elected in 1984. McConnell is now the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, having become minority leader in 2007. As majority leader, between 2015 and 2021, he presided over a radical reshaping of the federal judiciary, stocking lower courts with conservatives and installing three rightwingers on the supreme court.

Memorably, he described himself as “stronger than mule piss” in support of Brett Kavanaugh, the second of those three supreme court justices whose confirmation was rocked by allegations of sexual assault.

But with the health of aging politicians increasingly at issue in Washington – also over reports of Biden, 80, feeling “tired” or the California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein appearing confused at 90 – McConnell’s health is firmly in the spotlight.

In March, McConnell fell, sustaining a concussion and a rib injury that kept him away from Congress. Reports of other falls followed.

On Wednesday, it was widely reported that McConnell had sought to reassure fellow Republicans about his fitness to lead through to the end of his seventh six-year term, in 2026.

Three Republican Johns – Thune of South Dakota, Cornyn of Texas and Barrasso of Wyoming – are in line to contest the succession. All have avoided stoking speculation. Thune is 62, Cornyn and Barrasso both 71.

On Wednesday, after his awkward moment in Kentucky, McConnell was reported to have called senators and allies. An aide to Thune told news outlets McConnell “sounded like himself and was in good spirits”.

Jim Banks, a House Republican running for Senate in Indiana, posted a photo taken with McConnell, saying they “enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion” that evening. Banks told Axios: “He was engaging. Very dialed in on my race and following closely.”

Polling, however, shows majorities of American voters believe many politicians in Washington are staying in their jobs too long. More than half support maximum age limits for elected officials.

Luntz told CNN the response by McConnell’s office to his Wednesday freeze was “insufficient”, adding: “I understand why the public is saying about some of these people – give somebody else the chance to do the job.”