Experience abounds among newcomers to House and Senate

WASHINGTON — As the 119th Congress kicks off Friday, there will be plenty of new members who’ve had past success in other political offices or the business world. And a few already have some name recognition, at least on Capitol Hill.

Here are some of the prominent new faces to watch:

House

Troy Downing: A onetime candidate for Senate, Downing was elected Montana auditor in 2020, before winning the open seat for the state’s 2nd District based in Eastern Montana last fall.

Julie Fedorchak: The first woman elected to the House from North Dakota, Fedorchak is trading a seat on the state’s Public Service Commission — to which she was elected three times — to be North Dakota’s at-large House member.

Maggie Goodlander: A former Justice Department official, Supreme Court clerk and Senate foreign policy aide, Goodlander won election to New Hampshire’s 2nd District to succeed retiring Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, a fellow Democrat. Goodlander is married to Jake Sullivan, the outgoing national security adviser.

Abe Hamadeh: After losing a bid for Arizona attorney general in 2022 — by just 280 votes out of about 2.5 million ballots cast — Hamadeh won a hotly contested GOP primary for the state’s 8th District in the Phoenix suburbs before coasting to victory in the fall. He will succeed fellow Republican Debbie Lesko, who was elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

Mike Haridopolos: The next congressman for Florida’s 8th District spent more than two decades in the state legislature, including a stint as Senate president. Haridopolos also co-authored a book chronicling the rise of the Republican Party in the Sunshine State.

Brian Jack: The new representative for Georgia’s 3rd District is making his debut in elected office, but Jack worked in the first Trump White House, where he was director of political affairs and assistant to the president.

George Latimer: The incoming congressman for New York’s 16th District, who defeated “squad” member Jamaal Bowman in a Democratic primary, is a longtime fixture in local and state politics. He served more than a decade in the New York Legislature before winning two terms as the executive of Westchester County.

Sam Liccardo: Before his election to California’s 16th District, Liccardo served two terms as mayor of San Jose, the state’s third-largest city. Of partial Mexican ancestry, he is the first Latino to represent Northern California in the House in more than 120 years.

Sarah McBride: The new representative for Delaware’s at-large district is also the first transgender member of Congress. McBride, who arrives in Washington after four years as a state senator, first came to national prominence after speaking at the 2016 Democratic convention in Philadelphia — the first transgender person to address a national party convention.

Riley Moore: The nephew of fellow Republican Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, Moore was elected West Virginia treasurer in 2020 after an earlier one-term stint in the state House. He’s also a former congressional staffer, having worked for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Tim Moore: One of the most powerful politicians in North Carolina, Moore is entering Congress after a decades-long career in the General Assembly. That includes a record five terms as speaker of the North Carolina House, a role passed on from fellow Republican Thom Tillis, now the state’s senior senator.

Nellie Pou: A longtime Democratic state legislator in New Jersey, Pou is the first Latina to represent the Garden State in Congress. She takes the seat of the late Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell — the man she also succeeded in the state legislature nearly three decades ago.

Derek Schmidt: A former congressional aide and onetime majority leader of the Kansas Senate, Republican Derek Schmidt served three terms as state attorney general. He was the losing GOP nominee for governor in 2022 but bounced back to win Kansas’ open 2nd District last fall.

Sylvester Turner: After more than two decades in the Texas House, Turner was elected mayor of Houston in 2015 on his third attempt. He went on to serve two terms leading the nation’s fourth-largest city before winning the seat of the late Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee last year.

Eugene Vindman: Perhaps most famous for his role in the first impeachment of former and future President Donald Trump, Vindman is a 25-year Army veteran who was the National Security Council’s senior ethics official during the first Trump administration. Along with his identical twin brother, Alexander, Vindman revealed details of a now infamous phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

George Whitesides: A former chief of staff at NASA during the Obama administration who was also the longtime chief executive of Virgin Galactic, Whitesides won one of the most closely watched contests of 2024, defeating GOP Rep. Mike Garcia to flip a coveted Los Angeles-area seat for Democrats.

Senate

Many newly arriving senators also come in with some substantial government experience, including service in the House or as governor.

Some of them did not face particularly difficult general election campaigns. Republican Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, who will not be joining the chamber until at least Jan. 13, cruised to victory last fall. So too did a trio of outgoing House members: Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester, the first woman and first Black person elected to the Senate from Delaware, and Republicans John Curtis of Utah, the former mayor of Provo, and Jim Banks of Indiana, the former Republican Study Committee chairman.

Two other House Democrats elected to the Senate are already serving, with New Jersey’s Andy Kim and California’s Adam B. Schiff being sworn in during the lame-duck session to fill vacancies. Schiff entered the Senate as a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Kim, meanwhile, worked at the State Department and was a National Security Council official before being elected to the House.

Other familiar faces around the Capitol moving over to the Senate side include outgoing Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both of whom won open-seat races in states carried by Trump. Gallego previously served in the Marine Corps and as an Arizona state representative, while Slotkin was a CIA analyst under both George W. Bush and Obama.

Another newcomer with experience in elected office is new Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, who was until recently the Prince George’s County executive. She succeeds retiring Democratic Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin.

The remaining three new senators, all of whom enter the Republican Conference with the cachet that comes with flipping seats to help make the majority, have served in the private sector.

That list includes Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Tim Sheehy of Montana, the former two being repeat Senate candidates.

Sheehy and McCormick both graduated from service academies and served in the military before their business careers. McCormick also worked in George W. Bush’s Commerce and Treasury departments and was CEO of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates. Sheehy founded an aerial firefighting company. Moreno previously owned a chain of luxury car dealerships.