Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lost just about every way possible on Tuesday.
The Kentucky Republican had to abandon, again, an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act amid an uprising from the more moderate wing of the GOP caucus. Then he learned that one of his most influential Republican chairman would not run for reelection next year, setting up a potentially divisive race to succeed the senator.
Finally, before 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, McConnell suffered the final indignity: His preferred candidate in Alabama, Sen. Luther Strange (R), lost the GOP nomination in embarrassing fashion to a conservative insurgent who vowed that his victory would send a message that McConnell and his allies should “run scared for a while.”
While no stranger to defeat in the past — he spent eight years as minority leader — McConnell’s string of losses in such a short timespan Tuesday punctured much of his well crafted image as the consummate insider who could deliver.
Each blow had its own unusual circumstances, with President Trump’s own erratic performance playing a role, but McConnell’s failures came in nearly every facet of congressional leadership.
