President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump recently proclaimed that the SAVE Act was his "number one priority," but according to lawmakers who spoke with NOTUS, the bill is dead in the water, with one source saying, "That horse has left the barn."
The SAVE Act is a sweeping election reform proposal, built largely on the back of Trump's long-debunked claims that immigrants are illegally voting in massive numbers. Among other provisions, the bill would require individuals to present proof of citizenship and ID when registering to vote and when voting in person. Critics have argued that this would "disenfranchise" a large swath of lawful voters, as many Americans lack convenient access to a birth certificate or passport.
Republicans outside of Trump's fervent MAGA base were hesitant to aggressively pursue the bill, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) repeatedly warning that the votes simply were not there to pass it. There were also some quiet concerns that the bill's provisions would disproportionately impact GOP voters, given that lower-income and lower-education voters might struggle more with acquiring the needed documents, in addition to new rules that would impose more barriers on women who changed their names after marriage.
According to a Friday morning report from NOTUS, this opposition appears to have won out, with the SAVE Act being thoroughly put out to pasture by Republican lawmakers.
"Senate Republicans have sidelined the SAVE America Act, arguing that it shouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the party’s priority list, especially amid the Iran war and growing economic woes," the outlet explained.
The report continued: "Republican leaders this week were forced to remove the proposal as pending business in the chamber as they shifted gears to pass the budget resolution. That effectively benched the bill — which has been championed by President Donald Trump and considered a top agenda item — after an extensive pressure campaign by conservative members and influencers."
Despite many of them supporting the bill in theory, NOTUS reported that the bill's sidelining caused a "sigh of relief" among "a number of Republicans." They also suggested that the aggressive "blitz" from Trump and his MAGA allies "did little to help the case, and may have backfired."
“They’ve convinced themselves that the longer it hangs around, the more popular it gets. The reality is — I’m quite certain they haven’t gained a single vote, and may have lost a few with time,” one anonymous GOP senator told NOTUS. “There’s some things that aren’t possible, and this is one of them.”
The senator added, “When put in a lineup of the top 100 things people are thinking about every day, [voting reform] doesn’t get very high on the list. We’re spending a lot of the precious resource of time and energy on something that’s not top-of-mind awareness to voters.”
“It’s gotten to the point of being beyond annoying. They’re just sad,” another anonymous Senate Republican said. “First of all, how do you have the time to do all of this? And how is this a priority in a serious institution of intellects discussing big stuff?... I think maybe the realization that we don’t have the votes for this is finally sinking in. I feel like [the pressure campaign] has sort of dissipated… Maybe people are tiring of it — all except for [Lee] and a few others. Even the president hasn’t been talking about it as much.”