They point to the bipartisan infrastructure measure that many of the same lawmakers were able to produce last year as their model for negotiations, and as proof that compromise is still possible.
“I’m encouraged by the fact that almost every day, someone calls me and asks to join our group,” said Senator Susan Collins, the centrist Republican from Maine and a leader of the compromise effort. She characterized its members, who met virtually this week, as ranging from “pretty conservative to pretty liberal.”
“This is a serious, committed group of senators from both sides of the aisle,” she said in an interview. “This is not a surface effort.”
Aiding the outlook for the talks is the fact that Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, is also now encouraging them. He is taking what one ally described as a wait-and-see attitude after initially lashing out at the potential compromise as a ruse to undercut the Democratic voting rights package.
A separate group that includes Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and chair of the Rules Committee, and Angus King, the Maine independent, is drafting comparable legislation.
Virtually all Democrats back the idea of fixing the Electoral Count Act, which lays out the ceremonial process by which Congress makes an official count of the presidential election results to confirm the victor, to guard against its being exploited in the way that Mr. Trump and his allies attempted to do so.
But they caution that it is no substitute for their proposals, which focus on countering efforts to make it harder for minorities to vote and restoring parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act.