WASHINGTON — Regardless of the outcome of next week’s elections, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will make history in 2025 when the panel for the first time will have a woman as one of its two leaders.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is poised to succeed Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., as either the chair or ranking member of the panel, depending on which party wins the Senate. Cardin is retiring at the end of the 118th Congress.

Shaheen, now in her third term, has specialized in foreign policy, particularly transatlantic issues. She also has a strong working relationship with the current ranking member and possible next chairman, Jim Risch, R-Idaho. The two previously overlapped as leaders of the Senate Small Business Committee for one year in 2017.

“He has great respect for her,” said a source familiar with Risch’s thinking about Shaheen. “Regardless of what hand we’re all dealt (in Senate elections), I expect it to be a very positive working relationship because they really do have a very solid genuine foundation to start off on.”

Shaheen and Risch volunteered as election observers in 2012 in Georgia, where they supported a historic peaceful transition of power. The two have a shared concern about democratic backsliding in recent years in the Eastern European country and have issued joint statements on the matter as well as co-sponsored legislation (S 4425) that would impose sanctions on foreign officials that undermine Georgian sovereignty and stability.

They are both former governors and for the last five years have led a bipartisan delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum.

“The senators have a proven track record of working well together, harkening back to their time leading the Senate Small Business Committee and frequent overseas travel together, including leading the CODEL to the Halifax Security Forum,” said a source close to Shaheen. “I think that that hopefully lends itself well to a productive relationship with Sen. Risch and his team in 2025.”

That relationship could be tested, particularly if Donald Trump returns to the White House. Conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, the solidifying military ties between Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, and the strategic competition with Beijing are likely to dominate committee activity regardless of who wins the presidency and the Senate. But Trump, both as president and as a candidate, has been willing to disrupt decades of foreign policy consensus, especially in Europe.

Risch brought committee work to a halt in recent months over legislation that would sanction the International Criminal Court. Republicans are angry because an ICC prosecutor requested arrest warrants in May for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over actions in the Gaza Strip. The prosecutor also sought warrants for three officials from the Palestinian militant group Hamas over the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.