A congressional debate over election security is threatening to crack Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) relationship with the MAGA Right as activists vow political retribution if Republicans do not send the SAVE America Act to President Donald Trump’s desk.
A call-your-senator-style pressure campaign over the legislation, which mandates voter ID and proof of citizenship when registering to vote, has morphed into grassroots anger at Thune, who has not yet brought the bill to the Senate floor and is still discussing with colleagues whether to skirt the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold to pass it.
MAGA influencers have begun calling for his removal from leadership over the delay and are even threatening a primary challenge in 2028, when he will next stand for reelection in South Dakota.
“I don’t care how much money he has, I don’t care how much clout he has. I don’t care how powerful some of these senators think they are,” said Scott Presler, a conservative activist with 2-plus million followers on social media. “They can always be respectfully humbled in a primary. And I think that Thune, if he doesn’t get it passed, he’s going to be on his way out.”
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The public lobbying includes traditional grassroots mobilization, including an email and letter-writing campaign to Senate offices. Presler, who leads Early Vote Action, a PAC dedicated to electing Republicans, is also launching a “Save America Tour” and will travel to South Dakota in late March.
“I’m not an elected official, but my audience and my viewers demand action,” Presler said, “and Thune is failing to lead.”
“I cannot wait for the people to peacefully roar in his home state,” he added.
Warring factions
It’s the sort of slings and arrows that come with being majority leader and a dynamic that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) successfully navigated for nearly two decades atop the Senate GOP conference. But the backlash is unfamiliar territory for Thune, who just one year into the job is trying to balance a GOP appetite for election reform with the interests of his conference.
The voting bill, originally known as the SAVE Act, has enough GOP support to get a bare majority in the Senate, but Republicans are divided over whether it’s worth the headache of the talking filibuster, a long-untapped way of getting past minority opposition that would force Democrats to hold the floor if they want to prevent its passage.
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Thune has gently warned that it could open a Pandora’s box of unintended consequences, and is not alone in voicing that sentiment. Republicans are discussing the votes Democrats could force under a talking filibuster and the weeks of floor time that might be consumed using that approach.
Yet he is running up against a small but vocal crop of MAGA lawmakers who nearly derailed a government funding vote this month over Thune’s perceived foot-dragging and continue to amplify a drumbeat of calls for its passage on the Right.
Thune has repeatedly said the SAVE Act, which already passed the House, will get a Senate vote. He’s even co-sponsored the legislation. Conservatives view the promise of a vote as meaningless, however, if the bill is destined to die because of a Democrat-led filibuster.
Conservative pundit Vince Coglianese accused Thune of trying to have it both ways last week, supporting the legislation in principle but not enough for a fight that GOP activists are painting in cataclysmic terms.
“The very future of the Republican Party’s ability to win in any election, nevertheless these midterms, is on the line,” Coglianese said on The Bongino Report.
“If you care about the electoral consequences for your party, pass the SAVE Act or else get the hell out of leadership,” he added. “What kind of leader leads their party off a cliff?”
The tensions over the SAVE Act underscore the kind of conservative distrust of leadership that spoiled the careers of multiple House speakers and eventually weakened McConnell’s hold over the Senate, with almost a dozen Senate Republicans opposing his leadership by the time he stepped back last Congress.
Breakthrough issue
Outside voices ordinarily have less sway in the Senate, where members, elected to six-year terms, are more insulated from the passions of the political grassroots and give weight to other factors, such as preserving institutional norms. More establishment-minded Republicans have raised concerns that reviving the talking filibuster would set a precedent that Democrats will quickly exploit when they retake control of the Senate.
But the SAVE Act’s supporters believe election security is a base motivator even more potent than the chants for Obamacare repeal during the Tea Party and are warning that voters will stay home in November if the Senate does not act.
They cite polling showing more than 80% of people support voter ID and were freshly emboldened last Friday when Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican centrist up for reelection in Maine, announced her support for the bill. Senate Democrats are currently opposed to the SAVE America Act, warning its requirements amount to voter suppression.
“Nobody thought we would get Susan Collins to come out in support of the SAVE America Act,” said Presler. “That shows it’s working.”
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‘He’s not McConnell’
Despite the grassroots saber-rattling, the complaints about Thune are virtually nonexistent in his own conference, and he still enjoys the support of Republicans who gave McConnell a hard time, including the SAVE Act’s lead Senate sponsor, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
In an interview, Lee said he believed that Thune, who has committed to having discussions with his conference about the talking filibuster, is taking the temperature of Republicans in good faith and had not made a decision on whether to pursue it.
“I think he’s done a good job, and I appreciate his leadership and his friendship,” Lee said. “He’s got a tough job, and I don’t expect him to make decisions like this one lightly and without figuring out where all the ins and outs of it are.”
That well of support comes down to Thune’s leadership style. He was elected by Senate Republicans in 2024 on a promise to give his conference more input and has shown patience with his right flank on everything from Trump’s tax law to recent spending fights.
In terms of the talking filibuster, the outcome is not exactly open-ended; enough Republicans have publicly opposed it that it’s unlikely Thune will go down that path. But his emphasis has been on giving opposing viewpoints the space to make their case, as Lee did in a GOP lunch last week.
“He’s not McConnell,” said one Senate GOP aide. “McConnell would shut down any sort of discussion. McConnell basically kind of force-fed everyone.”
“Thune almost goes the other way — he talks to a point where it’s like, are we going to do something?” the aide added.
The fact that Thune has had less success managing the political grassroots is not for lack of trying. Unlike McConnell, Thune embraces the conservative media ecosystem, regularly appearing on talk radio and Fox News, and generally makes himself accessible to reporters.
He’s nonetheless caught in a political moment when both parties want to see their leaders fight tooth and nail for the upper hand. That led to a House vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) that Republicans easily quashed in 2024 with the help of Trump.
On the other side of the aisle, Thune’s Democratic counterparts in leadership are currently refusing to give Republicans the votes to reopen the Department of Homeland Security in part because they have their own balancing act with progressive voters, this time over the aggressive tactics of federal immigration agents.
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Trump stokes SAVE fight
Hanging over the SAVE Act push is the president’s own support for the legislation. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated on Wednesday that Trump “wants Congress to move and to move quickly” on nationwide voter ID.
Lee, who met with Trump at the Oval Office earlier this month, is also attempting to enlist the president’s help to convince Thune and other colleagues reluctant to pursue the talking filibuster.
“I’ve told him, ‘If you like it, you’ve got to help,’” Lee said.
“Help me sell it to the conference, to the leader and to my other Republican colleagues, because this is something – it’s not unreasonable for people to be apprehensive about a strategy that is not familiar to them,” Lee added. “And so, we’ll need encouragement if you want us to do this.”
That sort of outreach has not moved the needle significantly in the past. Republicans ultimately declined to eliminate or weaken the filibuster last year, when Trump went so far as to invite all Senate Republicans to the White House for a breakfast where he warned that keeping it intact would be a “tragic mistake.”
There is also the risk that the grassroots uproar over the SAVE Act only hardens opposition among Senate Republicans. House rebels, in particular, have egged on the pressure campaign but only walked away with a commitment from Thune to discuss the talking filibuster with his conference earlier this month.
Lee has joined the social media influencers posting almost daily about the SAVE Act, including the pleas for followers to call their senators if they want to see it passed.
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But he is also aware that the campaign could “backfire” if it’s taken too far and says he has periodically reminded supporters in private to measure themselves when they call Senate offices.
“If you choose to reach out to your senators, you’re going to catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” Lee said. “Be positive and be respectful, because it’s not going to help us if you’re a jerk about it.”
