Katie Britt set to enter national stage with State of the Union response

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) is emerging as a rising star within the GOP, with her Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday offering the Alabama Republican her first national introduction to voters.

Britt, the youngest female Republican elected to the Senate, has rapidly notched several accolades with just over two years in the upper chamber under her belt. She serves as part of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) leadership team and sits on the highly coveted Appropriations Committee.

Senate Republicans say she will offer a split screen of sorts on Thursday: a 42-year-old, energetic female Republican following an 81-year-old President Biden.

“She’s young, female and full of energy — opposite of everything Joe Biden is,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a fellow member of the Senate GOP’s freshman class. “The contrast between the two, it’s so different.”

“You’re going to hear ‘Sleepy Joe’ try to read a speech, and you’re going to hear Katie Britt deliver a speech,” he added.

Britt, who succeeded her boss, longtime former Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), entered the Senate in 2023 with high expectations, and being tapped to deliver the address has done nothing to counteract that.

According to a source familiar with Britt, the speech is expected to draw two main contrasts: that Biden is too old and “off the pace,” and that he’s out of touch with regular Americans. She will also make economic arguments down to the kitchen-table level rather than “abstract” ones, the source said.

Britt is also expected to touch on a litany of frequent Republican talking points including the border, crime, cost of living and foreign policy.

McConnell said he and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recommended her for the address because they believe she can be “particularly effective” in making those points against the president.

Brian Darling, a GOP strategist, said Britt offers an “optimistic Reagan-esque view of America.”

A Republican strategist with ties to Alabama described her as “the four corners senator” who speaks to different parts of the party and “breaks bread with moderates and MAGA.”

The most recent example of Britt’s work came last month as she helped navigate the party through a high-profile ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos were considered children under the state, reaching out to members of her party to shore up support for in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Former President Trump, who has all but clinched the GOP nomination for president, said she reached out him in the aftermath of the decision and called her “a very wonderful young senator in Alabama.”

The issue of IVF could be particularly salient Thursday as Democrats look to highlight issues surrounding reproductive rights in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning the federal right to an abortion. Democratic lawmakers have invited a host of reproductive rights advocates to sit in the audience, including Elizabeth Carr, the first person to be born via in vitro fertilization in the U.S.

“[Britt is] fabulous, all capital letters. I am really, really excited about her delivering the address. I haven’t been this excited in a long time,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told The Hill.

“The energy [and] enthusiasm she brings to our party is extremely important. She’s young. She’s vibrant. She is smart as a whip, and she can address tough issues for Republicans and do it with compassion, and I think people are hungering for that right now,” Ernst added. “She’s perfect, she’s absolutely perfect.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Britt’s Alabama Senate colleague, noted her energy and predicted “she’ll do a good job” and that it would be a “‘rah rah’ speech.”

Despite Britt’s fast rise, Thursday night will be the first encounter many people outside Alabama have with her. It will give her a prime chance to widen her audience, especially while there are whispers that she could be in contention to be Trump’s running mate later this year.

Britt has garnered fans on both sides of the aisle. She’s worked on a number of bipartisan items, including one piece of legislation aimed toward children’s safety on social media with Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Last month, she was involved with bipartisan legislation that aimed to protect members of the Coast Guard who report sexual assault and sexual harassment. Murphy, who also co-sponsored the package, told The Hill he is “glad” Republicans have recognized her as an emerging star and said he was “rooting for her.”

“I know these days it’s a little bit harder on the Republican side to be a constructionist rather than a destructionist,” Murphy said. “My belief and my hope is that she’s going to be one of the folks who tries to make the Senate work. I’m looking forward to seeing what she says.”

Members of the party also point out that she has looked to bring Republicans together, including during her own primary in 2022.

Republican primaries in past cycles have been particularly personal and nasty at times, but Terry Lathan, a former state GOP chair who backed former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) in the Senate GOP primary that cycle, said Britt reached out to her after her race was called.

“About 48 hours after she won, she called me, and what she was doing is very wise,” Latham said. “She pulls people in, she clears the deck. She hits reset, she does not hold grudges or disrespect someone because they may think differently from her, she actually respects people.”

Britt has a tall task ahead of her, however. As much as it is an honor to be asked to do the Republican response to the State of the Union, Darling noted members of the party in recent years have also stumbled at times.

When asked by The Hill if he has any advice for his colleague, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) poked fun at his widely mocked 2013 response when he awkwardly lurched for a bottle of water as he was visibly parched.

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t give the Spanish [response] before the English one.”

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