When Donald Trump returns to office, one of his most trusted advisers in the Senate won’t be a longtime lawmaker or the Republican majority leader.
It will be first-term Alabama Sen. Katie Britt.
Britt, a young rising star of the Republican Party, is known around Capitol Hill for engaging on a number of issues, including abortion, child care and immigration, and often serves as a high-profile messenger for her party. But looking to the new Congress, perhaps one of her greatest strengths will be her relationship with the president-elect.
“She’ll have Trump and will certainly have his ear, and he will probably make some of his changes right in line with things that she has on her mind,” Joan Reynolds, vice chair of the Alabama Republican party, told NOTUS about why the next several years will be critical to Britt’s career. Reynolds added that anybody who gets to work with the president, like she expects Britt will, has a “bright” future.
Republicans are set to have a 53-seat majority in the Senate next year, and members are eager to make good on many of Trump’s campaign promises. But often in Washington, the power players who rise to the top are the ones who can figure out how to be a bridge between Congress — where Republicans will have new leaders from when Trump was last in office — and the White House.
Republicans say she’s poised to be one of those people.
“She’s got a very good relationship with him, and I look forward to seeing that continue to grow,” Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts said.
Britt’s office did not make her available for an interview. But in a statement to NOTUS, the senator said she was “excited to continue to work with” Trump next year.
“I have always said that forming strong relationships built on trust and respect is key to success in the Senate and in life,” Britt said in the statement. “I am grateful to have previously worked with President Trump on critical priorities and always appreciate his eagerness to hear Alabamians’ perspective.”
Already it’s clear that Trump values her insights: During the campaign, he pointed to her as a heavy influence on his position on IVF.
In addition to her other committee assignments, Britt will join the high-profile Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress. She’ll also enter the year with a new role at the National Republican Senatorial Committee — where the new NRSC Chairman Sen. Tim Scott selected Britt as vice chair for the 2026 election cycle — which will likely grow her presence in key Senate races for the midterms.
“When she calls, people pick the phone up, or people will come to a fundraiser again,” Terry Lathan, former chair of the Alabama party, told NOTUS about her selection for the NRSC role. “I don’t think you put people in that position if they don’t have any pull and that people ignore. That’s not going to happen with her.”
The NRSC referred NOTUS to Scott for comment; Scott declined to comment. The Trump transition team also did not respond to a request for comment.
But Britt’s statement to NOTUS said she looks forward to working with Scott and the other vice chairs to help expand the “Republican Party’s tent and cementing our status as the Party of parents, families, and hardworking Americans.”
Members of the Republican conference said she’s a respected voice in the Senate.
“She has an outsized influence on decision-making in our caucus,” outgoing Sen. Mitt Romney said, pointing to her experience working as a Senate staffer for former Sen. Richard Shelby as a reason why she’s been able to so quickly gain trust within the conference.
Or, as Sen. John Kennedy put it: “When Katie has something to say, I think we all listen carefully.”
She even gets praise from her colleagues in the Democratic Party. Sen. John Fetterman, who collaborated with Britt to introduce a bill to protect children’s mental health on social media, told NOTUS that he’s “a big fan.”
“Our politics are different, that’s not a weakness,” Fetterman said. “It just means that we disagree. She’s a quality human being, and that’s the kind of people that should be involved [in] this.”
Britt served as a staffer in Shelby’s office in D.C. and worked her way up to be his chief of staff when he served as the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. After he announced his plan to retire she launched her own campaign to replace him, starting off with little name recognition but eventually getting Trump’s endorsement.
Outside of D.C., she’s perhaps best known for getting picked to give the party’s State of the Union rebuttal in 2024. She caught flak in part because she recounted a conversation she had with a survivor of human trafficking during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. The victim was reportedly trafficked in Mexico during George W. Bush’s administration, and Britt was criticized for implying that the victim had been trafficked in the U.S. during Joe Biden’s administration. Her speech also became material for an “SNL” skit.
“No one even talks about that,” Sen. Marco Rubio told NOTUS about Britt’s address. “She did fine. She did great. That’s just stupid people saying stupid things.”
For the sake of the party’s ability to deliver on its campaign promises, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville hopes other Republicans follow Britt’s lead.
“We all better be Donald Trump fans,” Tuberville told NOTUS, adding that Republicans want to avoid situations where they have to “mend fences” within their party. Otherwise, he said, “we’re gonna have problems for the next four years. We all need to get on the same page, and Katie is a big fan.”
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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.