The SAVE America Act won’t be enough to save the GOP from a midterm bloodbath

Turn on Fox News, scroll social media, or listen to talk radio, and one message comes through loud and clear: Many Republicans think the SAVE America Act is the key to saving the GOP in the November midterms.

It is not.

The SAVE America Act is not a magic wand. It will not erase 14 months of drift, dysfunction, and broken promises.

Yes, requiring proof of citizenship to register and identification to vote is necessary. Yes, most Americans, regardless of party, support the idea. But Republicans are kidding themselves if they think that alone will persuade voters to reward them in November.

The rot runs much deeper, and no “one simple trick” will fix it.

Trump surged to victory in 2024 on promises to change the country’s direction in dramatic ways. Fourteen months later, too many of those promises remain unfulfilled. Some died at the hands of weak and ineffective congressional leadership. Others were thwarted by feckless Cabinet officials, such as the new czarina of the Shield of the Americas, Kristi Noem. Others fell victim to Trump’s own choices.

The core promises were clear: mass deportations, a stronger economy, lower inflation, and no new long-term foreign entanglements. Those themes helped Trump assemble a broad coalition, including a majority of young men, and deliver the biggest Republican Electoral College victory since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Now, with just over seven months until the midterms, nearly all of those promises remain unmet or badly compromised. Facts aren’t partisan — they are just facts.

Start with immigration. For all the left’s hysteria over ICE raids, Trump has deported fewer people than Barack Obama did in the first year of his second term. That came after four years of unprecedented illegal immigration under Biden. The promise of mass deportation remains unfulfilled.

Congress hasn’t helped. Ineffective Republican leadership has let the Department of Homeland Security go without funding for over a month, slowing deportation efforts while creating chaos at airports as TSA employees go unpaid. The public sees dysfunction, not competence.

RELATED: Mullin inherits a mess at DHS. Here’s how he can still save Trump’s legacy.

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Then comes the economy.

The cost of living has not gone down. Signs point the other way. Inflation could surge past 4% as energy prices rise because of the war with Iran. Food prices remain high and may climb higher as petroleum-based fertilizer gets more expensive just before planting season. Homes remain unaffordable to most Americans. The job market sits on the edge of an AI-fueled bust. The promised relief in the form of larger tax refund checks has not materialized.

The labor market struggles as rampant H-1B visa abuse keeps importing cheaper foreign labor into high-paying STEM jobs that Americans want and are trained to do. Trump and Republican leaders still talk about H-1B as though it were a strategic advantage rather than a direct threat to their own voters.

Guess what? Voters have noticed.

Recent polling shows Democrat James Talarico leading both Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn in Texas. Former Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper holds a commanding lead in the race to replace Sen. Thom Tillis in North Carolina. Even in Maine, the Democrat challenger accused of sporting a Nazi tattoo leads Sen. Susan Collins.

RELATED: Texas Democrats just gave Republicans a gift-wrapped hypocrisy story

Bob Daemmrich/Texas Tribune/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The bad numbers do not stop there. A glance at RealClearPolitics tells the terrifying tale.

Special elections are just as ugly. In those races, including the district that encompasses Mar-a-Lago, Democrats have run strongly among independent voters, the very bloc that helped solidify Trump’s 2024 coalition.

That is the problem Republicans refuse to face. The SAVE America Act is a common-sense bill, and Congress should pass it. Elections should be protected from ineligible voters. But the bill is not a magic wand. It will not erase 14 months of drift, dysfunction, and broken promises. It will not lower prices, deport illegal aliens, fix the job market, or persuade disillusioned independents to come back home.

Republicans do not face a midterm problem because they have failed to pass one bill. They face a midterm problem because they have failed to deliver on the reasons voters put them back in power.