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Republicans are sounding the alarm that President Donald Trump’s demand to cancel August recess could cost the GOP seats in the midterms.
As the upcoming jailbreak from Washington, D.C., fast approaches, Trump’s most-prized legislative push remains stalled. He wants Republicans to stay put until it’s finished, but the political reality says otherwise.
And it comes as Republicans are desperate to get out of the Beltway and sell their accomplishments, rather than their shortcomings, to voters on the campaign trail. The GOP has more to lose than Democrats this cycle, too, with three vulnerable incumbents and a handful of others on the periphery.
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“Canceling August recess, where we have to have our members out campaigning and connecting with their voters, and people not understanding that, is about as tone-deaf as telling everybody to stay home in 2020 when we lost [Kelly] Loefler and [David] Purdue,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital.
“It’s the same sort of thought process,” he continued. “It’s thinking that one branch runs this country and it doesn’t. If we don’t keep majorities, people are gonna regret it.”
Several of Tillis’ colleagues, however, disagree, and want the Senate to stay put until the SAVE America Act passes, be it through the party-line budget reconciliation process or by nuking the filibuster.
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Trump’s pressure, the online zeitgeist and the political hot potato of the situation have put incumbents in a tough spot: go home and admit defeat, or stay put and push legislation that so far has not gone anywhere.
For many Republicans, they openly acknowledge that it’s a math problem in the Senate — the GOP does not have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act. Some argue that keeping the Senate in town likely wouldn’t change the minds of those who oppose it.
“If it would make a difference in the outcome, I’m fine with that, but it won’t make a difference, which I don’t believe it will, that it’s an act of futility,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.
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Both Cornyn and Tillis are retiring — Tillis opted to get out during the tumultuous period that was passing the “big, beautiful bill,” and Cornyn was kneecapped by Trump, who backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over him in a grueling primary battle.
But Cornyn noted that if he was still running for office, he might have a change of heart.
“I don’t know how that would come out, but if I was running for reelection, I would vote to stay,” he said.
Cornyn’s point is the line that some vulnerable Republicans are toeing. Two Republicans running in tight races, Sens. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, told Fox News Digital that they have been voraciously pushing for the SAVE America Act.
But, Sullivan said that he didn’t want to comment on the president’s push to cancel recess, while Husted said it was always preferable to be back in Ohio with his constituents.
“But I also have a job here, and if the job requires me to be here, then I’ll be here,” he said.
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Others in less tight races who support the legislation still understand the reality in the upper chamber: without changing the minds of a cohort of Republicans who have voted against it and flipping several Democrats, the SAVE America Act is going nowhere.
“I think to cancel the whole recess would be a problem, but I think to keep us up here another week or 10 days, certainly, I’m willing to do it. I’d stay here till November if I thought it would change things,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital.
But he acknowledged that coming home empty-handed was a problem, too.
“The base would be mad if we don’t make the best effort possible to get this voter ID across the finish line,” Marshall said.
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