'Blustering' Trump's desperate ploy to ban mail-in voting falls flat with GOP moderates

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s threat to derail his party’s agenda until Republicans ram through new voting restrictions in an expanded SAVE America Act has some key GOP lawmakers scratching their heads.

“It's his priority. I don't know how many others share it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Raw Story at the Capitol. “It's hard to see it being a top 10 issue for people. It almost never comes up, and I talk to thousands of North Dakotans.”

Even so, the president’s far-right allies are all-in on his new calls to expand the SAVE Act beyond requiring proof of citizenship and an ID to vote federally.

With the midterms approaching, Trump is demanding that the measure also include ruby red cultural issues, like restricting gender-affirming care for children and outlawing transgender women from participating in female sports, along with a federal ban on mail-in-voting.

“Oh, it's over if we don't get the SAVE Act passed, you know, for people running right now, because we're getting the blame for everything,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story.

“It's all the things the Democrats don't believe in, so you might as well get all of 'em at the same time so we don't have to walk over here and get it voted down four or five times, you know?”

But with Trump calling to federalize elections, Democrats are braced for battle.

“He is adamant about controlling our elections and steering them to the benefit of himself and his party,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) told Raw Story. “That's a concern.”

‘A hard enough lift’

Last month, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — aka the SAVE America Act — along party lines, with just one Democrat supporting it.

Since then, the SAVE Act has, like most House-passed measures, sat untouched in the Senate. That’s angered Trump, who’s pressured Republican leaders to blow up the 60-vote filibuster, so Democrats would have to physically take to the Senate floor to derail bills they oppose.

While rank-and-file Republicans have felt the White House-induced pressure, GOP leaders — from Senate Majority Leader John Thune down — say there just aren’t the votes to overhaul the rules and institute a talking filibuster, let alone to heed the president’s new call to lard the SAVE Act with Republican red meat.

“This is a hard enough lift, to be honest,” Cramer told Raw Story. “I support every single policy that's in the SAVE America Act. I think some of it's unnecessary, and almost all of it's going to be difficult to pass, to say the least.”

Like many Republicans, Cramer’s ready to back a talking filibuster but questions the gains, if any, of the gambit.

“If somebody wants to do a talking filibuster, I'm ready to lock myself up for a few months,” Cramer said. “So we do a talking filibuster, you hand the floor over to the Democrats for as long as they want to hold it. It just doesn't seem like a high priority.

“And furthermore, for me, I look at the 2024 election and think, ‘I don't know if it gets much better than this.’”

Cramer questions Trump’s new call to eradicate most mail-in voting.

“At least half of North Dakota's counties are mail-in counties. That's how they vote. It's not an exception, it's what they do — it's what we do,” Cramer said. “I've never loved mail-in-voting. I think a ban on mail-in-voting altogether is probably not passable, particularly in rural America, which is Trump country.”

While Cramer’s a reliable Trump ally, he’s also worried about expanding the federal government’s role in local elections.

“I'm not crazy about so much federal oversight of our elections at all,” Cramer said.

“But I, again, I support all those same principles. I supported them in the state legislature, I'll support them in this, but I just think, as the pragmatic person that I am, it seems like it's a lot of time being burned up. And the most valuable commodity we have is our time.”

The last remaining moderates in the GOP fear time is dwindling as Election Day approaches.

‘Far-flung places’

Other Republicans agree with Cramer that mail-in-voting is just a part of life for their voters.

“We have a huge military population that, you know, is scattered all over, and we have people in far-flung places where you never know what's going to happen on Election Day,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told Raw Story.

Upending mail-in ballots would punish the president’s base in parts of Murkowski’s state. In the 2024 general election, 51,212 Alaskans voted by mail — a whopping 23 percent of the vote — while 9,504 mail-in ballots were cast in the primary, according to the Alaska Division of Elections.

“So what happens with early voting, what happens with voting by mail, this is how we have allowed for access to voting,” Murkowski said.

“So no, I am not good with the SAVE Act as is currently written, because implementation in a rural state like Alaska is pretty close to impossible for some people, and I'm not willing to disenfranchise those folks.”

Moreso, when it comes to Trump’s calls for filibuster reform, Murkowski says the 60-vote threshold is a vital backstop for tiny, if expansive, land-wise states like hers.

“We've heard bluster about the filibuster, and he's going to keep it up,” Murkowski said. “But there are certain institutional safeguards in this body that I'm going to stand firm on.”

‘Expect him to abuse his power’

Internal Senate politics aside, Democrats say Trump’s demand to expand the SAVE Act to ban mail-in-voting is part of a troubling trend.

“It is him attempting in various ways and opportunities to control our future elections,” Sen. Cortez Masto of Nevada told Raw Story.

Catherine Cortez Masto. Picture: Shutterstock

Coupled with recent FBI raids on election offices in battleground states that Cortez Masto said were “looking for records from the 2020 election that we know the courts have all said was not stolen,” there’s a full court press from Trump to manipulate this year’s midterms.

Cortez Masto fears the administration is readying to deploy federal assets — whether the National Guard or Immigration and Customs Enforcement — to local voting precincts.

“My other biggest concern is, he's got now a police force that is a deportation force, but I can see him sending in that same police force around the elections to try to do something,” Cortez Masto said.

“It is a concern, and people should be aware he is trying to control our future elections to his benefit.”

Cortez Masto is far from alone in such fears.

“The president tried to cling to power last time he lost an election, and we would be naive not to expect him to abuse his power to try to foil the will of the people this time,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Raw Story.

Ossoff’s up for reelection in Georgia, where the last U.S. Senate contest, in 2022, saw upwards of $515 million in campaign spending.

He’s banking on Trump’s ploy backfiring this time around.

“In Georgia, with the history of voting rights struggle, attacks on voting rights only galvanize the will of the people to make their voices heard,” Ossoff said.

“I hear serious concerns about attacks on elections and determination to answer them with unprecedented mobilization and turnout.”