Former Arizona senator Jon Kyl, who guided Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation, dies at 84

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Jon Kyl, the three-term Republican senator from Arizona who spent nearly three decades in Congress and rose to Senate minority whip, died Wednesday night of a neurological disorder. He had announced a dementia diagnosis in December 2025 and had withdrawn from public life. He was 84.

Former Arizona governor Doug Ducey, who considered Kyl a mentor, called him a 'workhorse' among Washington's 'showhorses'.

Kyl left the Senate in 2013, returning for a short period in 2018 after Ducey named him to fill the seat left vacant by the death of John McCain.