U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has a lot going on these days. He's running for reelection next year, for one. He's also presiding over a Senate that will likely consider articles of impeachment against his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump.
So what's a busy guy-about-D.C. to do? Multi-task, obviously. McConnell has seized the threat of impeachment and spun it into a low-production masterpiece in the "social media campaign fundraising ad" genre.
"(U.S. House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi is in the clutches of the left-wing mob," McConnell says as he stands in front of a rather intense painting of what appears to be an elephant. "They've finally convinced her to impeach the president. All of you know your constitution. The way impeachment stops is with me as Senate Majority Leader. But I need your help. Please contribute before the deadline."
Trump faces impeachment proceedings brought by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives over a phone call between the president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump appeared to offer the release of U.S. aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into Democratic Party presidential primary hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The president's critics — including Democrats but also U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican — say the president broke the law with those statements and subsequent public statements asking Ukraine and China to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who served on the board of an energy company in Ukraine.
During his time as vice president, Biden pushed Ukraine to remove a Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor there long-thought to be corrupt. Trump alleges that the elder Biden did so because that prosecutor was investigating his son. Thus far, there is no evidence that this was the case — and a number of statements from officials both in the U.S. and Ukraine, including U.S. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, show that the prosecutor who was removed was indeed suspected of corruption.
McConnell has called the impeachment efforts against Trump "laughable" and said he will have little choice but to take up the articles of impeachment when they come to the Senate. That body's constitutional responsibility will then be to consider the allegations against the president in a trial. But McConnell, never one to shy away from controversy or rally his base, isn't exactly sitting quietly waiting for the chips to fall where they may.
McConnell is seeking his sixth term as Senator for Kentucky since he was first elected in 1984. He's been Senate majority leader since 2015. In that time, he's joined in — and increasingly, led — bare-knuckle political brawls over health care reforms, judicial nominations and myriad other issues.
Every six years, Democrats look for a challenger for the long-serving incumbent. This time around, they've found one they hope is formidable — Northern Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot. Democrats will also have at least one other option in the party's primary next year: Retired Marine Mike Broihier entered the fray in July and pharmacy technician and health care advocate Steve Cox was the first to formally declare his candidacy this spring.
McConnell has enjoyed support in Kentucky, however, which voted for Republican President Donald Trump by roughly 30 points in 2016 and hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate in 27 years. He bested his last challenger, then-Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, with 56 percent of the vote in 2014. But there may be some daylight for his challengers: some polls show he's one of the most disliked Senators in Congress, with roughly half of Bluegrass State voters saying they view him unfavorably.
