It’s an already-made-for-TV story: three politicians, all close friends, all rising to power at the same time.
For Sens. Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz and Cory Booker, it’s reality.
All three men are entering new phases of power and influence. And they’ve done so without competing against each other. For now, at least.
“I feel really blessed that I have true friends in the Senate,” Murphy told NOTUS.
“That doesn’t always happen,” he said. “Friendships sometimes are either transactional or an inch deep.”
For all three men, the rise to power hasn’t been subtle. Booker joined Senate Democratic leadership this year and has quickly become a spearhead for the Democratic Party’s social media push. He drew national praise for a protest speech in which he held the Senate floor for 25 hours.
Schatz is running for Senate whip, with the current No. 2 for Democrats, Sen. Dick Durbin, opting for retirement. Schatz has already racked up more than a half dozen endorsements and is the favorite to win the position.
And Murphy has steadily been raising his profile, building his status as a powerful communicator and a hefty fundraiser. In the first quarter of 2025, Murphy brought in $8 million, far surpassing typical fundraising totals for an off-cycle year. He’s being cast in glitzy profiles as “a clear voice for Democrats” and one of “the rising Hill Democratic stars.”
Political friendships, in many ways, seem trivial. But they can have real-world implications within Congress. They affect candidacies, races and votes. In a body of 100, having friends in power is its own currency — particularly when no one is competing against each other.
“I feel like we’re brothers, but I’ve never felt any sibling rivalry,” Booker told NOTUS. “If anything, I feel like I’ve been just excited and very prideful at both of them and how they’ve charted extraordinary careers.”
Some of the most powerful relationships in Congress have been bolstered by genuine social connections. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Durbin, for instance, were longtime roommates in a Capitol Hill dwelling that most closely resembled a frat house. (Former Rep. George Miller lived there, too. Their living arrangements inspired a short-run television show called “Alpha House.”)
This trio isn’t explicitly that close — i.e., they haven’t been roommates. But the three senators, all having started in the Senate around the same time, quickly found a connection. As Schatz put it, they were just a couple of dudes, all close in age, “trying to maintain some sense of normalcy in our lives.”
In the early days, the trio would have a regular check-in meeting before Monday night fly-in votes, along with a handful of other senators. That eventually faded as schedules grew more hectic, but the connection among the three men remained, with their alliances manifesting often.
When Booker gave his marathon speech on the floor, Murphy was alongside him, helping keep him focused and awake. When Murphy gave a nearly 15-hour speech in 2016 — in protest of gun violence — Booker did the same thing for him.
Schatz and Murphy have done multiple fundraising efforts together online. When Schatz announced his bid for whip, Booker was the first to endorse him. The three have also done numerous videos together over the years, including some podcast clips earlier this year.
Behind the scenes, the relationship plays out in other ways. In his first term, Murphy asked Schatz to help him move a “very heavy” couch he had bought secondhand online, a request Murphy said you’d only make of “your closest, most forgiving friends.”
Booker, meanwhile, takes credit for coaching both Murphy and Schatz on how to use X.
“The two of them are masters in their Twitter games. They just really took off,” Booker said. “So it’s almost like I feel like a beaver sitting on the Hoover Dam and saying, ‘I take credit for this.’”
Nowadays, as they tell it, their collaborations aren’t as official. It’s more about casual text messages and organic interactions. Schatz said the group generally has “a basic game plan,” but it’s not always exact.
“I don’t want anybody to think that we draft an operational plan and execute it precisely, because that’s not the way politics works,” Schatz said. “But there’s a recognition that we have complementary skill sets.”
About a dozen years after they all first came into the Senate, they’ve managed to avoid stepping on each other’s toes in their rise to power. Schatz framed that impressive feat as a product of them all having their own strengths.
“What’s cool about the Senate is that it is a big world,” Schatz said. “There’s plenty to do without being in direct competition with someone else’s jurisdiction, or how they made their name, or what they happen to be good at.”
“That’s been my approach,” Schatz added. “The Senate’s jurisdiction is literally everything that happens in America. And so if you can’t figure out a way to lead on something that is not already taken, then you’re not trying hard enough.”
For now, the trio’s different lanes are clear in the short term. The long term is hazier, particularly with an open 2028 Democratic presidential primary on the horizon and turnover in Senate Democratic Caucus leadership bound to happen at some point.
Each of the three — in their own unique ways — seems positioned to make a move.
Booker previously ran for president in 2020 in a crowded Democratic field that included multiple fellow senators. With the Democratic Party in dire search of a new slate of leadership for the 2028 cycle, he’s already seen as a strong candidate again.
Murphy also seems to have larger ambitions, though for exactly what is unclear. He’s also been floated as a potential 2028 contender, as well as a potential candidate for Senate leadership. It’s possible he pursues both, though it’d be difficult to do simultaneously.
Meanwhile, Schatz seems focused on the Senate leadership game. If he seizes control of the No. 2 spot, he could be well positioned to fill Schumer’s shoes when the New York senator chooses to move on. (Schumer is 74 and up for reelection in 2028.)
Murphy is up for reelection in 2030, giving him — like Booker, who is up in 2026 — a fair bit of wiggle room with any 2028 ambitions. Schatz is up for reelection in 2028.
Still, the group says they’re not concerned with how their paths might converge at some point. Murphy said they “don’t talk about that explicitly.”
“I don’t wish for that,” Murphy said. “I just think our friendships are so mature that if a moment like that ever does come, we’ll be able to work through it no matter what the resolution is.”
Booker also had a positive spin. When asked if, say, hypothetically, he and Murphy both ran for president in 2028, he emphasized that he doesn’t know whether either of them will. But, he said, “I can tell you one of the best parts of running in 2020 — standing on a stage next to Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, [Michael] Bennet and [Kirsten] Gillibrand. All of us became closer through that experience.”
“It was an understanding that we all knew that we were very different products on the shelf for which Democratic primary voters might be reaching for,” Booker added.
In 2028, as well as in the eventual turn of Senate leadership, Democrats are likely to closely inspect their options. After a disappointing 2024 election, the Democratic Party has embarked on months of soul-searching that seems nowhere close to a conclusion.
That’s helped Booker, Schatz and Murphy’s symbiotic rise.
But the trio hasn’t lost sight of the ways in which they differ. As Booker said, extending on hypothetical 2028 bids, “Chris Murphy and I are dear, dear friends, but we’re not the same candidate.”
“We’re three people that make a great trio, but we play different instruments,” Booker said, as he walked away from an interview with NOTUS.
He quickly turned back, however, and added that the group is “singing the same song.”
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Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS.