The oldest U.S. senator will not be stepping down early after a candidate from the opposing party won his state’s gubernatorial election.
“Senator Chuck Grassley is not resigning,” an aide said in a statement. “He remains committed to delivering for the people of Iowa, who overwhelmingly elected him to a six-year term in 2022.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), 93, drew 56 percent of the vote in 2022, earning him his eighth term.
If he stepped down early, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, could appoint a successor.
Reynolds opted not to run for another term, and Democratic lawyer Rob Sand won the race to succeed her. Sand will take office in January.
Grassley, the Senate president pro tempore—or third in line to the presidency—is the oldest U.S. senator. He said during an event in September that he was keeping an eye on the gubernatorial election.
“I’m worried about who’s going to be elected governor. I don’t plan on dying in office. But if I did, I don’t want a Democrat governor choosing my successor,” he said at the time.
Grassley has not yet said whether he will run for a ninth term.
Only one U.S. senator was 100 years old while in office. That was Sen. Strom Thurmond, who turned 100 in December 2002 while representing South Carolina as a Republican.
Thurmond retired the next month and died about six months afterward.
Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) addresses the 1968 Republican National Convention, held at the Miami Beach Convention Center in August 1968. (Graphic House/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
