Newark Mayor Cory Booker, in his office in Newark, N.J., in 2011, was elected to the U.S. Senate this week.

WASHINGTON — Will Cory Booker be another Ted Cruz? The next Hillary Clinton? Or something entirely different?

After winning a Senate seat this week, will Booker, a rising political star, follow Clinton’s example and try to blend in to the slow-moving Senate, sticking with the tradition of freshmen quietly earning their place? Or will he join the ranks of lawmakers who use the Senate as a platform to build their profiles and shape the national debate, seniority be damned?

“He is somebody who does like to make a splash, but I would hope that he would be a little more cautious in introducing himself in the Senate,” said Ross Baker, a Rutgers political scientist who has closely observed the Senate.

Booker will enter the chamber with assets few new senators enjoy: a national following, star-studded support and a talent for theatrics. He’s a dynamic figure with 1.4 million Twitter followers, cross-cultural appeal and is more well-known than most of his new peers.

But after pitching himself as a single-handed force for change, Booker is joining an institution that over recent weeks has been a picture of snarled dysfunction.

It’s also a body where newcomers are told to wait their turn, and where arcane rules, winding processes and unending roadblocks often chafe ex-mayors, governors and business leaders who are used to setting their own agenda — perhaps helping to explain why only nine of the 100 current senators have been mayors.

Citing the most recent conflagration, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told the Inquirer last week, “if I was in the Senate right now, I’d kill myself.”

And in 2010 Booker himself said that serving in the Senate would mean “discussing rules of procedure until I’m nauseous.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former mayor, said, “it’s very, very different, and it takes a lot of adjustment.”

Senate freshmen are expected to be seen and not heard. They are tasked with presiding over Senate sessions, serving shifts as functionaries as they watch others orate on the Senate floor.

New Jersey’s senior senator, Robert Menendez, was the third-ranking Democrat in the chamber when he moved to the Senate, but he recalled old lions such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., urging him to “take your time, listen a lot, get a lay of the land … and evolve over time.”

Quiet patience, however, has never been Booker’s style, and there is a new breed of senators who have bucked tradition.

In August Booker boasted to NBC News about “finding unique ways for bringing people together and disrupting broken systems, disrupting status quo.”

He cited Cruz and fellow freshman Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as well as liberal champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as examples of rising senators whose bold styles he admired.

(But Booker has vowed to be outspoken for compromise and attacked Cruz’s confrontational approach.)

Cruz and Paul are the most prominent examples of young senators who have defied the old order and used the Senate as a platform to advance their visions to a national audience using bold stands, theatrics, a devoted following and the help of social media. Both, like Booker, are seen as harboring national ambitions.

“A senator like Ted Cruz 60 or 70 years ago would have been almost unimaginable,” Baker said. “Now you have a much greater diversity of styles.”

Booker could be a starry counterweight on the left — and huge fundraiser for his party — much as liberals hope Warren can be.

Cruz has inspired conservatives but drawn the wrath of many of colleagues, including Republicans, who complain that his tactics have raised his profile but hurt the party.

Booker already ruffled feathers by openly coveting the seat held by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg before the incumbent had announced his plans.

And lawmakers know who is willing to do the real, gritty work of legislating and who is mainly concerned with publicity, said Richard Arenberg, a top Senate aide for more than 30 years.

“The coin of the realm in the Senate is still your personal reputation,” Arenberg said. “There’s only 100 senators, and they all interact with one another, and if you’re going to be effective, you’re going to have to earn that respect.”