McConnell Longevity

By Angela Hatton

Louisville, KY – Kentucky US Senator Mitch McConnell reached a milestone this past weekend. McConnell is now the state's longest-serving senator with twenty-five years of representation. He surpasses previous record-holder Senator Wendell Ford who retired in the mid-nineties. At a press conference over the weekend, McConnell remembered his Senate election in 1984.

"My party in the Senate which was in the majority at the time actually went down lost ground. And I was the only Republican who defeated a democratic incumbent that Senate that day in the whole country. So in Washington they thought it was quite an accomplishment. Down here they thought of it as a fluke."

McConnell won a narrow victory that year over Democrat Dee Huddleston. The Senator won his fifth term last November.