Mitch McConnell Is Facing More Pressure to Resign

Mitch McConnell faces further pressure to stand down as Senate Minority Leader after a new survey conducted exclusively for Newsweek found a strong majority of American voters want him to resign.

The Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll found 64 percent of eligible voters agree McConnell should step aside, of which 39 percent said they "strongly agree" with another 25 percent for "agree."

Against this just eight percent were opposed, broken down between five percent for "disagree" and three percent for "strongly disagree." The remainder were split between 21 percent who answered "neither agree nor disagree" and seven percent who selected "don't know."

The belief that McConnell should step aside is cross party and supported by a strong majority of both those who voted for Joe Biden and Donald Trump in November 2020. Among Trump 2020 voters 71 percent want McConnell to resign, as opposed to only six percent who want him to remain in post. For Biden voters the corresponding figures were 64 and nine percent respectively.

Answering another question, 42 percent of voters said they were "very concerned" about McConnell's ability to "discharge his duties in office given his age." Another 23 percent said they were "fairly concerned," while 18 percent were "slightly concerned," with only nine percent saying they were "not at all concerned."

Redfield & Wilton Strategies polled 1,500 "eligible voters in the United States" on August 5 and 6 for their survey. Newsweek has approached Senator McConnell for comment via the online contact form on his official website.

Concern about McConnell's health intensified on July 26 when the 81-year-old Republican politician stopped speaking and froze during his weekly press conference, before being led away by colleagues. Minutes later McConnell returned, insisting to reporters he was "fine."

In March, McConnell was hospitalized after falling over at a hotel in Washington D.C., and didn't return to Congress until April 17. Soon after being released from hospital McConnell was branded a "disaster" by Trump, with whom he has a tense relationship.

On August 5 McConnell was heckled with chants of "retire" during an event in Kentucky, with footage of the incident going viral on X, formerly known as Twitter, where it racked up more than 8.3 million views.

If McConnell does retire, there are likely to be three main candidates to replace him, Michael Zona, formerly GOP Senator Chuck Grassley's communications director and head of the Bullpen Strategy Group consultancy, told Newsweek. These are Senate Minority Whip John Thune, former Republican Whip John Cornyn, and John Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Republican Conference.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, aged 90, is also facing calls to retire over her health which intensified again on Tuesday when she was briefly hospitalized after a fall. In a statement sent to Newsweek her spokesperson said: "Senator Feinstein briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home. All of her scans were clear and she returned home."

However if Feinstein does resign it is unclear whether Republicans would support putting her successor on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, potentially resulting in the Democrats losing their majority.