'Here to get things done': How the incoming Senate class could shape the chamber's politics

Twelve new senators-elect make up a robust freshman class for the 119th Congress, ranging from businessmen to local politicians to House members reaching for the next step in their careers.

They’ll arrive at a time when both chambers remain deeply polarized yet separated by slim margins, and when President-elect Trump is pressuring lawmakers to provide him the authority, such as recess appointments, he wants to reshape the federal government.

In interviews with National Journal, several expressed optimism to begin legislating—but also some nerves for their new task.

The class will include six Republicans, including David McCormick, Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno—all political outsiders who beat veteran Democratic incumbents in crucial battleground states to deliver a 53-47 Senate majority to the GOP.

The other three Republicans are no strangers to politics: Reps. John Curtis of Utah and Jim Banks of Indiana, as well as West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice.

Included among the incoming class of the six Democrats are five House members, including Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, both of whom won battleground states that Vice President Kamala Harris failed to capture.

Reps. Andy Kim of New Jersey, Adam Schiff of California, and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware will join their House colleagues in the upper chamber. The sixth Democrat, Angela Alsobrooks, is a county executive from Maryland.

Blunt Rochester and Alsobrooks will mark a historic milestone as the first two Black women to serve simultaneously. Kim will be the first Korean American elected to the Senate.

And for those coming from the House—a total of seven overall—they will face the challenge of a chamber that operates quite differently than the one they’re accustomed to.

Sen. Ron Wyden, who served in the House for 15 years before he became a senator in 1996, explained, “The thing about it is, the rhythms of the two institutions are completely different. For example, the House still has, I believe, suspensions, which is an altogether different process than the Senate.

“I think the Senate is a place where, if you really have a policy agenda, one of the challenges is to be very disciplined and focused. Because if you take a flyer on everything that comes up out of nowhere, you can suddenly chew up a big chunk of your waking hours, and you say, ‘I didn't get my three really key priorities that people care about at home and that I've had an interest in and can make a difference on.’”

Kim, a Democratic House member who won an open seat in New Jersey following the resignation of disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez, told National Journal he believes the dramatic size difference between the two chambers—435 House members vs. 100 senators—is a plus. While Kim was able to do work on the national security front in the House, he believes the upper chamber will provide more opportunity to expand his focus to include bipartisan pushes in health care, specifically mental health.

The Senate “is much smaller than what I'm used to in the House, so as a result, it really feels like I'll have a chance to be able to work on a lot of different things I haven't necessarily been able to do on the House side,” he said.

He’s also coming in with a reputation of respect for the Capitol: Footage of him cleaning debris strewn across the Rotunda in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection nearly four years ago went viral.

The newcomers will be entering a very different upper chamber than the one that exists now: An incoming GOP trifecta has made Senate Republicans incredibly bullish on a robust tax package, and they are eager to continue expanding Trump’s judicial footprint from his first term. But they will also face constant loyalty tests from the president-elect, who has all but demanded it from the Senate Republican conference, beginning in the first 100 days to begin to build out his administration.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, an anti-MAGA Republican who is leaving the Senate, advised incoming GOP lawmakers to keep their independence: “Some people come to make noise, and some people come to make law. And if you want to get things done, you've got to be thinking about what kind of law you want to write, with sponsors on both sides of the aisle, and hopefully get it on the president's desk.”

Many have their eyes on the moderate Curtis, Romney’s GOP successor in one of the few states that trended bluer this year compared to 2020, largely due to growing Mormon dissatisfaction with Trump.

Curtis “has a very clear agenda and is a man of character who's been in Washington for some time,” Romney said. “But I think generally, deciding what you want to get done and then going to work to get it done is the best advice I have, as opposed to just coming here to get led by what the majority leader puts on the floor.”

Curtis told National Journal that he's "not doing this just to go through the motions."

"I'm really here to get things done and represent Utah,” he said.

Many of the incoming Republican senators will be eager to begin legislating for what they view as a MAGA mandate.

Sheehy recently told Breitbart Radio, “Having been in D.C. for my very first week, about week and a half ago for orientation, meeting my new colleagues out there, I can tell you from every wing of the Republican Party—from Susan Collins in Maine to Mike Lee in Utah—it’s pretty clear everybody is aligned, that we have a mandate, and it’s time to hit the gas and get moving.”

The Senate will be "very eager to not just rubber-stamp Trump’s agenda, but really strap rocket boosters to it and make sure that we get as much done as fast as we can,” Sheehy said.

Meanwhile, their Democratic counterparts will form a still-formidable check to a second Trump term. That starts with building the right foundation, said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan.

Peters, who chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this cycle, told National Journal that “the scale of being senators is considerably larger than a House office, and so it's really important that they really focus on getting the best staff that they can get as soon as possible,” especially as Democrats aim to be “hitting the ground running next year.”

Peters noted he is particularly thrilled to be working with Slotkin, a former CIA officer and Pentagon official, who will be taking Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s open seat and becoming his “partner in Michigan.”

Despite her status as a freshman, Slotkin will likely be seen as a heavy hitter for Democrats on intelligence issues and nominations. She expressed concern during an interview on ABC’s This Week on Sunday about the pace and selection of some of Trump’s nominees—many of whom will need Senate confirmation.

"I just need to know that the people who are in these jobs are not going to be guided by politics and what someone tells them they think they should be seeing in the intelligence or in the defense picture, but what is actually the truth on the ground," Slotkin said. "Speaking truth to power is one of the most important things the intelligence community does, and if you have someone in there who feels more beholden to telling the president what he wants to hear, I've got a real problem with that."

She’s not the only one with intelligence chops: Schiff served on the House Intelligence Committee until former Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed him following a partisan scuffle over committee assignments. Schiff had played a key role in both of Trump’s impeachments during his first term as president.

During their orientation just days after the election, the Democratic class was noticeably more reticent than their GOP counterparts. Five of the six Democrats did not comment on how they plan to tackle their time in the Senate or their new roles when asked by National Journal.

Whatever their approach to the upper chamber, all of the incoming senators will have to reach across the aisle to achieve their goals.

“Politics is personal,” outgoing Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware told National Journal. “It's easy just to get to know your Democratic colleagues or your Republican colleagues, but in order to get things done, bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions.”

Sen. John Fetterman, who was part of the freshman class in 2022, was a bit more sarcastic reflecting on his first years in the Senate, joking that his favorite part was “all of the glamor.”

“I know my soon-to-be colleagues that have spent tens of millions of dollars of their own money [are] going to discover that it's not [glamorous] here,” Fetterman said. “This is not West Wing, where it's snappy dialogue. It's just a lot of bad performance art.”