The Rise of Tom Cotton

S enator Tom Cotton has plenty of competition when you think of the forces driving the ideological development of today’s GOP. Nebraska’s Ben Sasse has a Ph.D. and was a university president. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are whip-smart, well-spoken constitutional experts.

And yet, Cotton has begun to play a key role in shaping the direction of the caucus, and he might have the brightest political future of the bunch.

Cotton was never seen as an intellectual lightweight; his Harvard Law degree made sure of that. But he didn’t enter the Senate with a reputation as a wonk, either. He’d spent only seven months in the House of Representatives when he announced his bid for a seat in the upper chamber in August 2013, and he hadn’t held elected office before becoming a congressman. Instead, it was his experience as an Army veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — where he attained the rank of captain — that fueled his political rise and enabled him to build a reputation as a foreign-policy hawk.

Given that background, Cotton’s quiet success establishing himself in a party running as fast as it can from the Bush Doctrine seems all the more remarkable. His experience in the Middle East resulted in no Tulsi Gabbard–like transformation into an isolationist. Indeed, in September 2014, The Atlantic published a profile of the soon-to-be senator that described Cotton and The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol as “kindred spirits.” Kristol and the brand of third-wave neoconservatism that he represents are anything but ascendant within the American conservative coalition, yet Cotton’s hasn’t seen his political fortunes dim in the slightest.

That’s not because Cotton has let his views “evolve,” either; he’s still arguably the Senate’s most hawkish member. It’s because he’s found a way to triangulate and make his message appeal to the broadest array of factions within the fractious GOP coalition. For instance, instead of emphasizing the theaters of war where he once fought, he has emphasized Iran — an “axis of evil” member that 88 percent of Americans continue to view unfavorably — and China, the authoritarian superpower seeking to supplant the United States as soft global hegemon.

Cotton is certainly not unique among Republican politicians in relentlessly attacking Iran and China, but he has made an effort to own the issues these two countries raise by making them the focus of his social-media messaging. He has also led the way in Congress on China in particular. He has proposed that Chinese-run Confucius Institutes on American campuses be forced to register as foreign agents. He has urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to invite Taiwan’s president to address Congress. He has fought to impose sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for carrying out the Uyghur genocide. And he has been at the center of righteous efforts to hold China responsible for unleashing the COVID-19 pandemic on the world.

That Cotton has been able to fashion his hawkish foreign-policy instincts into a winning political message is impressive enough. But the same deft touch has served him well in the domestic sphere, too. His views on immigration are well suited to an increasingly restrictionist GOP, and in 2017, he sponsored the RAISE Act, which would have cut the number of green cards issued each year in half, ended the diversity lottery for visas, and instituted a points-based immigration system. While it failed to pass, it certainly placed him on the right side of the issue with the GOP base and exhibited his willingness to go on the record with his positions not just by issuing statements but by putting forward legislation.

That willingness has been further exemplified by his joining with Mitt Romney to propose a forthcoming bill that will slowly raise the federal minimum wage, pin it to inflation, and mandate that private employers use the E-Verify system to ensure that they aren’t hiring illegal immigrants over American citizens. This kind of proposal — meant to merge a more populist, compassionate economic conservatism with a hard-line stance on illegal immigration — makes Cotton uniquely positioned to succeed in the years to come, given the direction of the party.

Cotton’s approach to procedural questions and navigating the disastrous end to the Trump administration have proven effective as well. He managed to navigate the sad aftermath of November’s election in a way that generated positive publicity, making sure he was not seen as liable for the violence. Yet he also remained in the good graces of the Trump-backing portion of the Republican coalition — a very tough needle to thread.

First, when Trump urged GOP senators to object to the election results and pressure Vice President Mike Pence to send contested electors back to the states from which they came, in hopes of overturning Joe Biden’s victory, Cotton refused. In a statement three days before the election’s certification, he asserted that “Congress’s power is limited to counting electoral votes submitted by the states.” It was notable not because he was the only one to take this position, but because he did so early, before any of the other ambitious young legislators with their eyes on the presidency.

On January 6, Cotton’s instincts were vindicated, while objecting senators such as Hawley and Cruz had to share blame for the Capitol riot with Trump. Then, when Democrats moved forward with impeachment a week later, Cotton immediately issued another statement condemning the riots but also asserting that the Constitution would forbid the Senate from convicting a president once he left office. This quickly became the stance around which most Senate Republicans coalesced as the impeachment trial approached.

In what is likely to be a crowded 2024 field — so long as Trump does not seek to reprise his role as standard-bearer — there are few people better suited to please more Republican voters than Tom Cotton. He’s a veteran and a China hawk. He has credibility on immigration and fiscal issues. And he has not disqualified himself with either Trump fans or Trump skeptics. The only problem is that in presidential races, personality traits matter, and Cotton doesn’t have the natural charm of many of his rivals. Time will tell how much that will cost him in the race for the White House. But no matter what happens four years from now, Cotton has become a man Senate Republicans look to for leadership on issues foreign, domestic, and internecine. And that’s no small feat in itself.