Senate Republican leaders want Trump to stop holding his own party's feet to the fire over election integrity just as New Jersey admits hundreds of noncitizens have a history of voting in its elections — the exact problem the SAVE America Act was written to solve.
The stakes are straightforward: Republican leaders are telling the president to drop the pressure campaign and focus on Democrats instead. But the New Jersey bombshell makes clear that the establishment's real problem isn't Trump targeting weak Republicans — it's that those Republicans don't want to fight for the people who elected them.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Fox News Digital that Trump's push to pass the SAVE America Act puts vulnerable incumbents in a bind. "The president made the argument, 'Well, pass the Save America Act, it will motivate our base,'" Thune said. "Yeah, but I think the base can be plenty motivated by other issues, and particularly by the president getting out there on the campaign trail and telling them why it's important that they elect Republicans to the Senate."
NRSC chair Tim Scott warned that internal division would hand the majority to Democrats. "There's no doubt that the road to socialism runs right through a divided Republican Party," Scott told Fox News Digital.
Fox framed the story almost entirely around GOP messaging anxiety — the party's fear that Trump's intraparty attacks will cost them the Senate. What Fox buried: the reason Trump is applying pressure in the first place.
The Daily Caller reported Wednesday that Democrat New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill's administration acknowledged 220 noncitizens had a "history" of voting in the state. These are part of a larger group of 6,600 noncitizens who were registered to vote due to what Sherrill's office called a Motor Vehicle Commission "glitch." Approximately 340 of those registrants actually cast ballots in at least one election, according to NJ.com.
The software company behind the registration system pushed back on the glitch narrative, telling the Daily Caller it had only followed "design specifications as set out by the state" — specifications that allowed applicants to mark "no" on citizenship while still marking "yes" to register to vote. That's not a glitch. That's a feature.
Sherrill turned the revelation into a partisan attack, saying her investigation stands "in contrast to the Trump administration and Republicans, whose only interest has been in trying to use this issue for political gain." This from the governor whose own state system registered thousands of noncitizens to vote.
Four green card holders were already charged with voting in federal elections in New Jersey in May. In July, a 62-year-old noncitizen from Slovakia was charged with illegally voting and making false statements on a citizenship application.
"There were elections in Jersey where Democrats have won by 1 vote," reporter Michael Casey said. "What further proof do we need that the SAVE America Act is desperately needed?"
Five times Senate Republicans have tried to pass the SAVE America Act this year. Five times Democrats have blocked it. The bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections — a baseline safeguard that, somehow, 53 Republican senators can't deliver and their leader would rather they stop talking about.
Thune wants Trump to tell voters why they need more Republicans. Trump wants Republicans to deliver something worth voting for. The question heading into November is whether the GOP's problem is Trump's messaging — or the Senate's refusal to fight.
