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.”

Grassley (R-Iowa), 93, drew 56 percent of the vote in 2022, earning 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 senator. He said during an event in September that he was keeping an eye on the gubernatorial election.

“One of the reasons 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 (R-S.C.), in 2002.

Thurmond retired one month later and passed away six months after that.

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)

Republicans in the midterms also lost the race for the open U.S. Senate seat representing Iowa, now held by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), as well as three of the four seats the state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, despite Grassley campaigning with GOP candidates just before voters went to the polls.