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Mitch McConnell, the current Senate Majority Leader, has been in politics since 1984, when he was first elected to the Senate. The Republican Senator from Kentucky has been re-elected five times since he has been in office. Known for his use of the filibuster and blocking Obama’s Supreme Court nominations, McConnell has called himself the “grim reaper” when it comes to “the socialist agenda that they have been ginning up over the House with overwhelming Democratic support.”
1960s-1980s
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McConnell grew up in Alabama, where at the age of two his upper left leg was paralyzed by a polio attack. Fortunately, McConnell recovered and today you can see him walk the floor of the Senate. He graduated from the University of Louisville in 1964. That year, McConnell began interning for Senator John Sherman Cooper, a Republican from Kentucky who in both 1960 and 1966 set the record for the largest margin of victory for a Kentucky senatorial candidate from either party. In 1974, McConnell was Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford. In 1977, McConnell was elected as a Jefferson County Judge in Kentucky. In 1984, McConnell ran against Walter Huddleston for senator in Kentucky, and beat him by only 5,100 votes. In 1984, Senators made $72,600 a year.
2006-present
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According to the non-profit, nonpartisan organization Center For Responsive Politics, which tracks the impact of money and lobbying on elections and policy, McConnell has an estimated net worth of $26,927,535 (from 2015). That ranks McConnell the 11th wealthiest Senator that year. In 2006, when McConnell was first elected as Senate Minority Leader, he had a net worth of $5.36 million dollars. In 11 years, McConnell has increased his net worth by almost $22 million dollars.
As the Senate Majority Leader, McConnell makes $193,400 a year. How is Mitch McConnell making less than $200,000 dollars a year, but has raised his net worth over $20 million dollars in 10 years? Meet Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao.
McConnell married Chao in 1993. She was the Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. She has been the United States Secretary of Transportation under the Trump administration since January 31, 2017. Chao comes from a family with a lot of wealth. Chao’s father James S.C. Chao in 1964 started a shipping company in New York City. Today, her sister Angela continues to run the Foremost Group, a privately-held shipping company with most of their freight being shipped to China. The Chao family gave the Harvard Business School a $40 million dollar gift in 2012.
In 2007, after Elaine’s mother Ruth Mulan Chu Chao passed away, McConnell’s wife received an inheritance between $5 million and $25 million. According to Mitch’s financial disclosures, a tax-exempt money market fund is listed as a “gift from a filer’s relative”. McConnell’s massive increase in wealth is the result of his marriage with his spouse, and not from dirty corporate money he was making under the table. McConnell was not shadily or mysteriously lining his pockets with campaign donations. He has increased his net worth by so much simply because he married someone with a little bit of inheritance money.
Net Worth 2019
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While we are unable to get an exact number, Mitch McConnell in 2019 probably has a net worth between $10.6 million and $43.3 million dollars. With the inheritance being between $5 million dollars and $25 million dollars, it is hard to know exactly how much money McConnell has.
