The SAVE Act Died at Thune’s Desk. The Base Hasn’t Forgotten.

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on October 31, 2026

Featured photo: Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks as President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Republican senators listen at the U.S. Capitol. Office of Senator John Thune, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is spending the last days before the midterms on the road trying to save his majority. Many of the voters who would give him one are still angry about a bill he never got through the Senate.

Thune “knows that he’s taken intense criticism from the party’s base — and from President Donald Trump — for his chamber’s inability to pass voter legislation this year,” the Associated Press reported from Iowa, where he campaigned with Rep. Ashley Hinson in her tight Senate race.

The bill, and the wall

The SAVE America Act would require Americans to prove citizenship when they register to vote, mostly with a passport or birth certificate, and to show photo ID before voting, NewsNation reported. It passed the House. Trump called it his “No. 1 priority.”

Thune says he supports it. But Republicans hold 53 seats, and under the filibuster the bill needs 60 votes to advance. “It has no chance in the 100-member Senate with the filibuster intact,” the AP wrote. Trump has pressed Thune to change the rules, and Thune “has staunchly refused, citing the need to stop Democratic legislation if and when Republicans lose power again.”

The fight goes back to the winter. Sen. Mike Lee pushed a “talking filibuster” that would have forced Democrats to hold the floor for days or weeks. “We won’t pass the SAVE America Act unless we start by making filibustering senators speak,” he posted, Roll Call reported. Thune told colleagues the votes weren’t there, per NewsNation, and Sen. Thom Tillis said he would back the tactic “under no circumstances.” “For better or worse, I’m the one who has to be the cleareyed realist about what we can achieve here,” Thune said in March, as Elon Musk joined online calls to remove him as leader, Politico reported.

By summer Trump himself sounded unsure. Asked whether Thune was the man for the job, he said, “we’re going to find out, and I’ll let you know,” the AP reported.

Follow the money?

The anger turned sharper in July, when the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog, published a report naming 11 Republican senators, Thune among them, who it said took money from industries that rely on immigrant labor and backed the DIGNITY Act, a bipartisan bill to give some illegal immigrants legal status, Zeale News reported. The report cited groups including the National Restaurant Association, the National Association of Home Builders and the Associated General Contractors of America, and said it drew on Federal Election Commission data. Graphics based on it spread widely on X.

Two cautions. TNT could not independently reproduce the report’s dollar totals from FEC records, so we are not repeating them. And by AAF’s own account, the report does not allege a quid pro quo. Plenty of senators of both parties take money from builders and restaurant owners. What it does show is why the base doesn’t take “the votes aren’t there” at face value.

Why it still matters

Thune is popular inside his conference, and no one has stepped up to challenge him when Senate Republicans vote in secret on their leader a week after the Nov. 3 election, the AP reported. “If there’s any Republican losses, it’s going to be about gas prices,” Sen. Bernie Moreno said.

Maybe. But the voters Thune needs on Tuesday were told for two years that proof of citizenship to vote was a priority. The filibuster is a Senate rule, not part of the Constitution, and Republicans changed it in 2017 to confirm Supreme Court nominees. If they keep the majority, the base will expect the SAVE America Act to get a real fight, not another explanation of why it can’t pass.

TNT Staff