Inside the marriage of Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao0

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• July 11, 2026

McConnell had polio as a child and finds back-slapping painful, so Chao stepped in to hug constituents instead. “She listens very actively. She really pays attention and remembers details about people,” Kelly Westwood, director of the Kenton County Republican Women’s Caucus, told Time in 2014. “She doesn’t see them for months and then she says,