After serving in the Senate for a little over a year, all eyes will be on Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) when she steps into the national spotlight on Thursday night to deliver the rebuttal to the State of the Union address.
Britt, 42, the youngest Republican woman to have been elected to the Senate, has a unique opportunity to reach out to women as well as young voters, a key demographic the GOP has struggled to win over in past elections, while also presenting herself as a fresh face of a party that is represented disproportionately in Congress by older men.
The only Republican senator who is the mother of young children, Britt worked as an attorney in Alabama before she ran for Senate. She also knows the ins and outs of Capitol Hill, having worked for former Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) as his deputy campaign manager and communications director before eventually becoming his chief of staff.
While the Alabama senator has kept a relatively low profile on Capitol Hill, she’s played an instrumental role behind the scenes. Once she was sworn into office, she was tapped to serve as an informal adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) leadership team.
Following in the footsteps of her former boss, Sen. Shelby, who served as the vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Britt was appointed to a post on the powerful and coveted panel, an almost unheard-of assignment for a freshman.
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“She is a refreshing breath of fresh air and energy and brings a different perspective to our caucus, which I think is really important,” said Susan Collins (R-ME), the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee.
Britt’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address comes a day after former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley suspended her campaign. The move prompted the remainder of the party to coalesce around former President Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee. Britt endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign in December and has frequently been critical of Biden since she was elected.
“The Republican Party is the party of hardworking parents and families, and I’m looking forward to putting this critical perspective front and center,” she said last week in a potential preview of her speech after the news broke that she would be delivering the GOP response. “There is no doubt that President Biden’s failed presidency has made America weaker and more vulnerable at every turn.”
“She offers the perfect contrast to Biden,” said John Ashbrook, a former McConnell aide who remains close to the Kentucky Republican. “Not just because she’s the youngest woman in the Senate facing off against the oldest man in the White House but because she’ll echo millions of middle-class Americans angry with him on the border, economy, and crime.”
Britt has shown a willingness at times to work across the aisle. She was involved early on in negotiations on a Senate border deal but ultimately broke away from the group and voted against it. She is known to cultivate personal relationships with Democrats but has navigated carefully and has been a reliably conservative vote.
“She’s definitely one senator who flies under the radar and often extends an olive branch to Democrats. She seems like she wants to get stuff done but often has to contend with the pressure of a divided party in an election year,” said a Democratic Senate aide, who asked not to be named to reflect candidly on internal matters. “She’s a good choice for Republicans, so I guess good for them, maybe not so great for us,” the person said with a laugh.
Typically, the opposing party chooses a speaker who is viewed as an up-and-coming leader to deliver a response to a president’s State of the Union address. This year will be the third year in a row that Republicans have chosen a woman to deliver a rebuttal after they tapped Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) in 2023 and Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) the year before.
“I am over the moon — she is fabulous, Katie Britt, fabulous in all capitals. She’s going to deliver an extraordinary address to the nation and show all Americans just how wonderful these Republican women are,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who delivered the State of the Union rebuttal herself in 2015.
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Britt’s speech comes as Democrats are attempting to put a recent Alabama Supreme Court decision that declared cryogenically frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” front and center ahead of the 2024 election in an effort to highlight the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Alabama senator called Trump after the decision came down and helped shape the campaign’s response to the ruling, according to sources familiar. Ernst believes this could be one of many reasons why Britt was selected to be the speaker.
“I think that could be part of it, but even more than that, contrast President Biden with this young, energetic, fresh Republican woman from Alabama. I just think she’s fantastic,” Ernst added.
David Sivak contributed to this report.
