Trump election speech divides a GOP wary of midterms

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President Trump’s efforts to win congressional approval of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act at all costs are frustrating Republicans who see him as picking the wrong fights with his party ahead of a crucial midterm election.

The frustrations were magnified by the primetime address Trump gave Thursday night that revisited his frustrations with the 2020 presidential election.

Trump criticized the U.S. election machinery while urging Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote and would require voter ID to cast a ballot.

Efforts to move that bill have been stalled by GOP senators, who say the legislation doesn’t have the support to get through the Senate.

Some Republicans say his insistence on passing the legislation in the face of the opposition is a waste of time, while his remarks questioning public faith in the U.S. election system is taking the GOP off better election-year messaging.

“To me, it’s just a missed opportunity to talk about an issue that voters are actually going to cast votes on,” Michigan Republican strategist Jason Cabel Roe told The Hill.

“We continue to have to revert back to him airing his grievances, and, you know, Republicans are expected to just stand and salute to it,” he added.

Other Republicans acknowledge the frustration among some within the party but argue election security is an issue with the ability to fire up Trump’s base, which is comprised of many low propensity voters, during a midterm election year.

“It’s in a way probably a push to galvanize the base and get them a little bit more fired up because we do need to get them excited to vote in November, and this could be one of those issues to highlight that, but we definitely do want to see more of a push on the economy as well,” one national Republican operative said.

Trump’s address, which included unsubstantiated claims that China had interfered in the 2020 election cycle while national security officials allegedly tried to cover it up, was certainly aimed at pressuring Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), ahead of the speech, told the New York Post that there may be a way to pass the proof of citizenship voter registration legislation through a budget reconciliation process, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate.

The president had teased beforehand that election integrity would be a focal point in his remarks, with some of his ardent supporters cheering Trump ahead of the address.

“I was just briefed by the White House on what to expect this evening. I would encourage every American to tune in tonight to the President’s speech. This may be the most important Oval Office address since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) wrote on social platform X before the speech.

Other Republicans voiced concern that his speech would be backward-looking.

“The problem is we won every election. We won the House, we won the Senate, we won the White House. We’ve got a conservative majority in the Supreme Court,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has frequently battled with Trump, said ahead of the speech.

“And we’re trying to convince people that the problem is we can’t win elections or the elections weren’t fair? I think that’s going to fall flat. It may energize a small amount of the base, but it’s going to fall flat among the swing voters, and it’s not going to help in November to try to relitigate 2020,” added Massie, who was defeated in a primary earlier this year by a Trump-backed challenger.

Recent polling does show that the legislation could be a potential motivator for the GOP base.

According to a July poll from Echelon Insights, 67 percent of Republican voters said the fact that the SAVE America Act has not passed the Senate yet means that more Republicans should be elected to the body so legislation like the bill can pass. Another 18 percent of Republican voters said the bill’s lack of passage demonstrates the GOP is “ineffective” at delivering its promises and that more elected Republican lawmakers will not change that.

The same poll also found that 51 percent of Republican voters said they believe Senate GOP leadership is doing the best it can to pass the legislation, while 35 percent said the party’s leadership in the Senate is “betraying” Trump by failing to pass the legislation.

Those allied with the president also argue that there’s little electoral downside to talking about the 2020 election.

“We’ve won the popular vote nationally in the presidential race once since then. We have won the national House popular vote twice since then. We have taken the Senate back since then. There’s just no evidence that this … makes it somehow problematic for Republicans to win elections,” said a source familiar with Trump’s political operations.

“The fact that Donald Trump thinks that we have election vulnerability is completely baked into the electorate,” the source added.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) appears to be taking the issue and running with it. On Friday, one day after Trump’s address, the RNC launched its “Election Integrity Week of Action” across the country. The effort involves recruiting election observers and training what it calls election integrity volunteers.

Others are skeptical the legislation will motivate the base, given the low likelihood it will pass through the upper chamber with the filibuster intact.

One Republican strategist argued that the party’s base voters would be turned off by Senate leadership if the legislation does not pass.

“Your rallying cry is go reelect the Republicans or help elect Republicans to keep the Senate in Republican hands,” the strategist said. “The low propensity voter who’s paying attention to these issues is like ‘I’m not getting out there. The hell with those guys. You told me we need this damn SAVE America Act and they won’t do it, so screw them.’”

“It’s almost a fait accompli,” the strategist added.

Roe suggested focusing on it was a losing issue.

“The math isn’t there to get it passed, and it’s yet another example of pushing something that isn’t going to help us in the elections, at the expense of things that will help us in the elections,” he said.

The strategist also noted that Trump’s messaging on Chinese interference is bound to send mixed messages to voters following Trump’s warm and lavish state visit to China earlier this year and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s high anticipated state visit to Washington in September.

“You either gotta have a boogeyman or you’re not going to have a boogeyman,” the strategist said. “I don’t think it’s a rallying cry. I think it’s a confusing one.”

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