Sheldon Whitehouse savors his U.S. Senate victory, in the Providence Biltmore ballroom, on election night.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — His election as Rhode Island’s new junior U.S. senator hasn’t sunk in yet, Sheldon Whitehouse says. But already he has been heartened by two immediate changes that his victory helped bring.

First, Whitehouse said, is the way that his victory puts Democrats in control in the Senate and enhances the power and status of the state’s senior senator, fellow Democrat Jack Reed, who campaigned hard for Whitehouse. The second thing he pointed to is that the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress forced President Bush to remove Donald Rumsfeld, a major architect of the . Bush administration’s Iraq war policies, as secretary of defense.

“Already there has been change,” said Whitehouse. “Who would have thought that before the day was out Wednesday, Rumsfeld would be gone?”

The Whitehouse win over incumbent Republican Lincoln D. Chafee last Tuesday shifted the Senate to a 51-to-49 Democratic majority, which means that Reed jumps in seniority and is expected to take a seat on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee as well as holding his slot on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

On the House side, Whitehouse said, the Democratic takeover enhances the positions of Rhode Island Congressmen James R. Langevin, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Patrick Kennedy, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee.

“Jack is going to be in a very strong position,” said Whitehouse. “One of the things people are going to see is what this has done to empower Jack Reed. He has so much goodwill and is so respected.”

Whitehouse has said he hasn’t decided which committee assignments he will seek, but said he will focus on areas that complement Reed. For example, Whitehouse said he would not seek to be on committees involved with the armed services or military affairs because that is Reed’s portfolio.

“I’ll absolutely defer to him,” said Whitehouse. Now that Democrats are in the majority, Whitehouse said, he expects Reed to have an even larger role in defining the Democratic position on Iraq and related military policies.

So Whitehouse said he will probably seek committee assignments in areas such as education, health care or the environment. He said he has not made any major personnel decisions, but Mindy Myers, his 30-year-old campaign manager, has agreed to stay on at least for his transition to office in January.

Myers will accompany him to Washington this week for orientation meetings, Whitehouse said. He said he has also consulted Jeffrey Teitz, a former state representative from Newport, who is chief legal counsel to the Senate committee that has authority over pension, health care and labor issues. The chairman of that committee is likely to be Patrick Kennedy’s father, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Whitehouse said that Democratic Party unity was very helpful in his election and to those of other Democrats on the state ticket, all of whom won except for Charles J. Fogarty, the party’s gubernatorial candidate, who in the end gave Republican Governor Carcieri a much stronger race than anyone in the state’s political hierarchy expected.

Rhode Island’s political history is studded with examples of bitter Democratic primaries that paved the way for GOP victories, including one Whitehouse was involved in 2002, when he lost narrowly to former state Sen. Myrth York of Providence in the party’s primary for governor. That election split Democrats and led to Carcieri’s win.

This year it was the GOP that had the nasty intraparty joust, with Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey challenging Chafee in a primary that divided the party and drove Chafee’s negatives. Whitehouse had only token primary opposition and used the summer to build support rather than tearing down a party opponent.

That unity helped candidates help each other. On election eve last Monday, Whitehouse took time out to explain to an elderly voter at the John Fogarty Manor housing complex in Pawtucket why it was important to vote for Attorney General Patrick Lynch’s reelection.

Whitehouse said the way Democratic first-time candidates for state office metamorphosed into “convincing candidates” was impressive. He mentioned especially Lt. Gov.-elect Elizabeth Roberts, Secretary of State-elect Ralph Mollis and State Treasurer-elect Frank Caprio.

Another big factor in his victory, Whitehouse said, was the fundraising operation headed by Mark Weiner of East Greenwich and Weiner’s friendship with former President Bill Clinton, who came twice to the state to campaign for Whitehouse. Whitehouse’s campaign raised about $6.3 million and is left with very little debt, he said.

Whitehouse heads to Washington this week to begin orientation meetings in preparation to becoming the state’s junior U.S. senator, but that doesn’t mean Rhode Islanders won’t be seeing him much.

Whitehouse said he plans to stay temporarily, at least, with his aunt, who has a spare bedroom in her house on MacArthur Boulevard in the District of Columbia, but that he doesn’t plan to move his family from their home on Providence’s East Side.

His two children, Alexander and Molly, attend The Wheeler School, in Providence.

“Our home base is going to be Providence,” Whitehouse said. “I’m planning on being a commuter.”

On a somber note, Whitehouse spent part of the day Friday attending the funeral of Army Sgt. Michael R. Weidemann, the 11th Rhode Islander to be killed in the Iraq War.

“Now that I am at least a senator-elect I felt it was important to pay my respects,” said Whitehouse. The burial of Weidemann’s ashes was at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, where Whitehouse’s grandparents are buried.

After the service, Whitehouse said, “I went over and swept the leaves off my grandparents’ gravestones.”