Capitol Hill’s Republican Leaders Are Pivotal to Trump’s Agenda, and Relatively Anonymous

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As President Donald Trump begins office about as popular as ever, his top governing partners in Congress are relatively new on the job, and consequently, relatively unknown among the party’s base compared to the Republican Hill leaders of 2017.

Roughly 2 in 3 Republican voters have never heard of or have no opinion about Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), compared with 36% who said the same eight years ago about his predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Similarly, 37% of Republicans nationwide don’t know what to think of House Speaker Mike Johsnson (R-La.) — more than double the share who said the same of then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

It’s not uncommon for relatively new congressional leaders to have lower profiles, even among their respective bases.

For example, 42% of Democratic voters have yet to form opinions about House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, compared with a quarter who said the same of his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi at the start of Trump’s first term.

Meanwhile, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who replaced Harry Reid of Nevada in 2017 in Congress’ so-called “Big Four” and is the sole remaining member of that group, has grown his profile — and his popularity — among his party’s voters over the past eight years.

The bottom line

On the Republican side, both Ryan and McConnell clashed with Trump with at least some regularity since the president began dominating the political conversation in 2015, but it’s clear that Thune and Johnson, like most Republicans still holding office today, are tacking much closer to the deferential approach employed by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Already, Johnson’s House Republicans are trying to coalesce around a budget reconciliation plan to pass “one big, beautiful bill” to include all of Trump’s priorities even as Thune said in an interview with Politico that the “text is ready” for his preferred two-bill approach for his party’s border, energy and tax agenda. 

Ahead of a grueling legislative calendar sure to feature plenty of internal debates over the strategy for ticking off key Republican agenda items, whether Thune and Johnson remain relatively unknown at the end of 2025 may depend on whether their labor bears fruit. And at the end of the day, whichever leader’s strategy wins may be irrelevant to their longevity — as long as Trump gets what he wants in the end.

For the two men, relative obscurity may be the safest place to stay given that Trump’s version of making people famous can often end with their own infamy.