The Trump era of Congress begins, with a majority in House arriving since 2016

When Donald Trump was sworn in as president eight years ago, about 12% of House Republicans had first taken office after his election in 2016.

When the president-elect returns to the White House later this month, that percentage of House Republicans will have grown to a staggering 68%, or 150 members who were first seated after his first election win or later.

Welcome to the Trump era of Congress.

These figures extend to House Democrats as well: 125, or 58%, of the party’s 215 members for the new Congress were first seated after Trump first won the presidency. Taken together, 63% of representatives were first elected with Trump in 2016 or in the years since.

The Senate’s turnover is also notable, though not nearly as high given that the chamber’s six-year terms tend to reduce the impact any president could have on senators’ electoral prospects. And a number of senators began their congressional careers in the House. In total, about a third of Senate members first came to Congress after Trump’s initial election.

What that means is a substantial portion of Congress doesn’t know a version of Washington without the influence of Trump. And that’s a concern for some lawmakers.

“If you look at the history of the institution, the average service now amounts to less than nine years,” said Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the longest-serving woman in Congress. “That isn’t good for the country. Why is that? Because progress at the federal level moves slowly.”

Trump’s longevity is unique. He’s approaching a decade as the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, which also chips away at the Senate’s comparative resistance to broad-spanning change.

And Trump will be working with a GOP that is expected to be much more deferential to his priorities and whims. The party has chased some of his loudest detractors out of Washington — which could work to the benefit of Trump’s agenda, though it would also leave some of his impulses unchecked by his own party.

As lawmakers head to the Capitol on Friday, interviews with members and experts paint a picture of a changed Washington.

“Trump has really transformed things, because he’s called for loyalty — loyalty first, in many cases,” James Thurber, a professor emeritus of government at American University, said in an interview. “That significant commitment to loyalty is making a difference in terms of the way the House and the Senate are behaving at this point.”

Cleaning House

As Trump prepares to take office, House Democrats say they have a much better sense of what they’re walking into this time around.

The party will have to tread carefully coming off losses in key swing states last fall that handed Republicans control of the Senate and the presidency.

But Democrats have already begun telegraphing one clear line of attack against the incoming Trump administration: Accusing Trump of being beholden to billionaires like Tesla founder Elon Musk.

“There are going to be enormous conflicts of interest where they are pushing policy that benefits themselves and hurts working people,” said Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the outgoing chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “We just have to be ready to call that out over and over again.”

Kaptur, who narrowly won a 22nd term last fall in her northeast Ohio district, said she’s seen how Trump’s rhetoric can affect lawmakers and, potentially, their willingness to stay in Congress. Some members can find his brash approach to politics “discouraging” in a job that’s “hard enough anyway,” she said.

The surge of new blood across both sides of the aisle since Trump’s first election has also brought an influx of enthusiasm and ideas to the House, Kaptur said. The list of lawmakers that ran for public office as a reaction to Trump — ranging from acolytes on the GOP side to vocal opponents among the Democrats — is lengthy.

But it does have its downsides, Kaptur added: “There’s new energy, but the energy isn’t as fiercely directed, because they’re still getting to know their committees and learning how hard it is.”

Trump’s impact on the House’s priorities has certainly been felt, even before the start of the 119th Congress: See the year-end budget fight and the ensuing uncertainty over the House speakership. Trump’s intervention is also a departure from previous incoming presidents, who historically haven’t weighed in on legislation before inauguration, according to Thurber.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a former candidate for speaker, was emphatic when asked last month about Trump’s influence on the House.

“President Trump’s the leader of our party,” he said. “I’m anxious to get doing the things we told the voters we’re going to do.”

In the eyes of some lawmakers, that includes more disruption of what they see as the Washington status quo — though even in the Trump-friendlier House, thin margins mean there would still be room to buck the president’s priorities and have an outsize impact.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy has made a name for himself fighting both what he describes as the Washington establishment and, sometimes, even his own colleagues.

A member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, Roy has been a key holdout on a number of pivotal congressional votes since coming to Congress in 2019, including the 15-ballot saga two years ago that ended with Kevin McCarthy’s ascendance to the speakership and Roy with a spot on the Rules Committee. The congressman also voted against Trump’s preferred take on the recent stopgap spending measure, citing concerns over the fiscal impact of the president-elect’s push for a two-year debt ceiling increase.

Roy said in a pre-recess interview that he thinks Washington’s evolution will continue during the second Trump administration. That, he added, could come either through legislative efforts or outside influences like the newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency,” an unofficial advisory panel co-chaired by Trump allies Musk and biotech magnate Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Congress is now going to have to get with the program,” Roy said. “Some of us have had a little longer experience being disruptors. I think some are going to have to kind of figure out how to operate in that environment, and that’s going to be the biggest change.”

Standing still in the Senate

The Senate could be more resistant to Trump-led changes to the way Congress operates. Thurber said the chamber has many “institutionalists” who would want “to go through the process of advice and consent, the first major tests, but also want to stand up for the institution of Congress.”

That list of lawmakers, according to Thurber, includes incoming Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who will have to balance Trump’s demands with congressional procedure.

There have already been signs of Republican senators showing some reluctance at giving the president-elect everything he wants. Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz reportedly withdrew from consideration to be Trump’s attorney general after it became clear that he wouldn’t have enough support to be confirmed in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Nevertheless, Trump’s staying power has increased his sway over the Senate GOP Conference, according to Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University.

“They’ve essentially, all but a handful who were elected in ’22, the rest have all been on the ballot with Trump,” Binder said in an interview. “You can’t really escape Trumpism when you’re on the ballot with him.”

And at the end of the day, any legislation passed by Congress will need Trump’s signature to become law.

“You gotta get him to agree to whatever it is you’re passing,” Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley said before lawmakers dispersed for the holidays. “And if he doesn’t like it, he’s not gonna sign it, and particularly reconciliation.”

Some Republican senators, though, demurred when asked about the ways Trump had influenced the chamber during his first term and how the next four years would compare.

“Every Congress is like a fingerprint,” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said in an interview. “What occurred in the first Congress bears little resemblance to the next one. So talk to me in March about how this Congress looks.”