Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, announced plans to step down from his leadership position after the upcoming national elections.

McConnell, who is eighty-two years old and has spent the past seventeen years as the Republican leader in the upper chamber, announced in remarks on the Senate floor that he would not serve in the position after November. "To serve Kentucky in the Senate has been the honor of my life; to lead my Republican colleagues has been the highest privilege," he said.

The pending resignation comes amid his apparent decline in physical health. McConnell paused mid-sentence during a weekly press conference in July, trailing off and staring blankly for more than twenty seconds, and froze again in August at a speech in Kentucky, pausing for over thirty seconds before he was led away and an aide reported that he felt lightheaded. McConnell, a polio survivor, also suffered falls on multiple occasions last year.

"I always imagined a moment when I have total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” McConnell added during his emotional address on the Senate floor.

McConnell, who started his Senate tenure in 1985, is both the longest-serving Senate party leader in American history and the longest-serving member of the Senate from Kentucky.

McConnell has been widely recognized for advancing conservative judicial appointees from President Donald Trump but has faced criticism amid his rivalry with the former commander-in-chief. He also received backlash in recent weeks for seeking to advance a controversial border deal that included additional aid for Ukraine and Israel.

Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, mounted an unsuccessful bid to replace McConnell as Republican leader after the midterm elections. Scott contended that Republicans should be “far more bold and resolute than we have been in the past.”