U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., will join Senate leadership in the next session of Congress as he looks to play more of a role in redefining Democrats’ messaging after the party suffered major losses in the November elections.
Democrats elected their new leadership team Tuesday for the 119th Congress, which begins on Jan. 3 and lasts for the next two years. Some members already in leadership moved up the ladder with the No. 3 spot open after the retirement of Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, while Murphy was added lower down the roster as a deputy conference secretary to serve alongside U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
Overall, leadership will remain largely the same as Senate Democrats enter the minority and Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress and the White House next year. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will stay at the helm as Senate Democratic leader.
As someone who has been a key player in bipartisan negotiations over the past few years, Murphy said the new position essentially formalizes the role he already had within the caucus. He said it does not come with many “formal duties,” but he will meet weekly with other senators to craft policy, messaging and strategy.
He was already a fixture on a Tuesday morning phone call with a larger group of senators and will now join the Monday night call that Schumer convenes with his leadership team.
“I’ve been in a constant conversation with Chuck about both policy and messaging. I think this was more than anything else recognition of that fact that in some ways I’ve been filling an informal leadership role in the caucus for the last couple of years just because of the big issues that I have been a part of,” he said in an interview, referring to the negotiations of the gun safety bill, bipartisan border legislation and reforms to the Electoral Count Act.
“I’m certainly going to use my seat at the table to try to advance the argument that we have got to completely reshape what we communicate and the way that we communicate,” he added.
Murphy, who won reelection for a third term last month, has spent the past month ruminating over Democrats’ losses across the country and over where the party may have gone wrong. He has delivered a blunt assessment that the elections were a “disaster” for the party and that it needs to find a way to deal with the disconnect between voters opposing Democratic candidates but supporting policies backed by the party.
He has said the party needs to do better reaching out to working-class voters and challenging the consolidation of power by corporations and billionaires, echoing some of the messaging that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has wanted the party to adopt. Sanders was also elected on Tuesday to remain as Democrats’ chair of outreach.
Murphy recently circulated a memo to fellow Democrats, arguing that focusing on holding corporations accountable can be a potent message and that the data from his own reelection race backs it up. In it, Murphy noted that he outran Vice President Kamala Harris in Connecticut by 4 percentage points.
Polling that his team conducted over the summer found that 82% of likely voters in Connecticut strongly or somewhat agree that a top issue in the U.S. is that “a handful of corporations and economic elites have too much power and the government is doing too little about it.”
“To some, Connecticut — one of the highest income states in the nation and the bedroom community for Wall Street — may not seem like a place where economic populism would have traction. But it does. And if it sells in Connecticut, it sells everywhere,” Murphy wrote in the memo.
But after nationwide losses and depressed voter turnout, Democrats have been calling for change, especially generational change. On the House side, the party also plans to stick with its top three leaders, though they had a shakeup two years ago when former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her deputies stepped down from their leadership roles.
When asked if the party should have considered a shakeup or seen challenges to top Senate leaders in the wake of the election, Murphy pushed back that they can still learn lessons about the November losses with the current leadership in place. He pointed to the promotion of his ally and friend, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., to the No. 4 spot as a sign that younger members are carving out a bigger role.
“This is a moment where a lot of younger voices are going to be able to step forward. Just because the same leaders are returning in the House and Senate doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for other voices to step out and stand out,” Murphy said. “I want to be in that room because I don’t want to run the same strategy back.”
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans will have a new majority leader next year as U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history, steps aside. The GOP elevated U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who had already been serving in leadership, to majority leader in a vote last month.
After holding a narrow majority in the Senate since 2021, Democrats will now need to navigate governing in the minority party. In the early months of the next Congress, Murphy and his colleagues will be tasked with considering and voting on President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for Cabinet positions. And Thune said the early days of the Republican-led Congress will be focused on trying to pass a legislative package related to border security, defense and energy, according to Politico.
But Murphy said he worries about “a campaign of persecution against Democrats” by Trump’s Justice Department, especially with the nomination of Trump loyalist Kash Patel as director of the FBI.
“I don’t think this is going to be business as usual,” Murphy said. “I’m very much worried about Trump making good on this threat to destroy our democracy. Confronting that has to be job No. 1 of the Democratic opposition.”
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published in the Connecticut Mirror Dec. 3, 2024
