Longtime Democratic leader Harry Reid died Tuesday at the age of 82

Longtime Democratic managing committee Leader Harry Reid died on Tuesday at the age of 82.

Reid, who devoted 35 years to representing Nevada in Washington, D.C., served as Senate Majority Leader from 2007-2015 and Minority Leader for two years thereafter.

“Harry Reid was one of the most amazing men I’ve ever met,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a statement on his passing on Tuesday.

“He was tough-as-nails strong, but caring and kind, and always went out of his way quietly to help those who needed help,” he said. ‘He was a boxer who came from humble origins, but he never forgot where he came from and used those boxing instincts to boldly fight those who were hurting the poor and the middle class.’

“He was my leader, my mentor, one of my dearest friends,” said Schumer, who succeeded Reid as Democratic leader in the US Senate in 2017.

Schumer concluded: ‘He is gone but he will walk with many of us in the Senate every day.’

The lifelong politician is survived by his wife Landra Gould and five children.

Earlier this month, McCarran International Airport just outside Las Vegas, Nevada, was renamed Harry Reid International Airport in honor of the MP. He called for the airport to be renamed, where he spent decades making visiting DC one of the “greatest honors” of his life.

After first entering politics in 1969 as a member of the Nevada Legislature from the state’s fourth district, Reid eventually rose to the highest position in the United States Senate.

From 1983–1987, Reid represented Nevada’s first congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives—his first position in D.C. and not in his home state.

He then spent two decades as a Democratic senator for Nevada, where he served in various leadership roles including majority and minority whip, Senate Democratic Caucus chair, and minority and majority leader.

In 2016, as Reid prepares to end his term in politics, he told the Washington Post: ‘It’s going to be an adjustment, I wish I could stay in the Senate forever.’