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80% Back the Save America Act: Jim Pfaff on Rush to Reason | Jul 30, 2026

Published: July 30, 2026
Network: Rush to Reason with John Rush (Denver)
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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Eighty percent of the American public supports the Save America Act — and the Republican Senate still will not move it. That was the center of Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff’s July 30 conversation with John Rush on Denver’s Rush to Reason, joined this week not from Washington but from Madison, Indiana, home of the Madison Regatta. Pfaff argued the midterm fundamentals — a debt-ridden DNC, bad polling numbers for Democrats, even a Republican edge on Iran — all favor the GOP, with one exception: Republicans themselves. From zero recess appointments since Reagan to the Cornyn-Tillis block of the Todd Blanche nomination, from New Jersey’s admitted noncitizen voter registrations to Lisa Murkowski’s ranked-choice games in Alaska, the two walked through a party that keeps beating itself.

Topics Covered

• A Broke DNC — and a November Still at Risk
• A Republican Congress That Won’t Deliver
• New Jersey Admits 6,600 Noncitizens on the Voter Rolls
• 80% Support — and Thune Says He Doesn’t Have the Votes
• Murkowski and the Ranked-Choice Deal That Blocked Joe Miller
• The One Thing That Should Unite Republicans
• Key Takeaways

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A Broke DNC — and a November Still at Risk

Rush opened with the money: the fundraising gap between the RNC and the DNC, and a Democrat national committee so far in debt it is hocking its own headquarters to cover its finances. Is the disruption inside the Democrat Party big enough to matter in the midterms? Pfaff said it absolutely is — with a catch:

“I would maintain all the positives are on the Republican side except for the Republicans”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The numbers back him up. The polling is genuinely bad for Democrats — Pfaff noted that on Iran, the issue both men worry could hurt Republicans in November, the American public actually gives Republicans a +2 advantage on who is best handling it. And yet, he said, November is still at risk. Rush agreed, pointing to how Democrats are already rehearsing the cost-of-living attack — he had seen Ilhan Omar that day claiming what the Trump years have cost the average Minnesotan — and predicting they will hammer that message all the way to Election Day.

A Republican Congress That Won’t Deliver

Pfaff recalled the recent exchange between Larry Kudlow and Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma — a friend from Pfaff’s Capitol Hill days — in which Kudlow told Republicans they are losing the script and failing to message what is going on, and Lankford responded by berating Kudlow and the media for beating Republicans down. Pfaff’s answer: the problem is not the reporting. The question conservatives are asking is why Congress won’t do something simple that the American people want, instead of running away from everything.

“This Congress, this Republican Congress, has been horrible.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Exhibit one is the confirmation record — a point Pfaff has been making for weeks, including in our analysis of the Senate’s recess-appointments obstruction:

“since Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump’s the only president that has had no recess appointments”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The Senate has been slow in moving the people Donald Trump wants to serve — including, just recently, Senators Tom Tillis and John Cornyn shutting down the Todd Blanche nomination for Attorney General at the Department of Justice. Pfaff called it absolutely absurd — and yet Republicans are supposed to be happy with this Congress. His grudging concession: they may win in November in spite of themselves, because the numbers really are that bad for Democrats.

New Jersey Admits 6,600 Noncitizens on the Voter Rolls

Pfaff’s larger frustration is that Republicans sit on winning stories and never tell them. He repeated a line he has used many times:

“Republicans are really good at grabbing defeat out of the jaws of victory”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The story they should be telling right now is coming out of New Jersey — a story we have covered in depth in our report on noncitizen voter registration in New Jersey:

“you’ve got Mikey Sherrill admitting that 6,600— and frankly, it’s a whole lot more than that— illegal are registered to vote in New Jersey. She blames it on the computer company, but it’s their process that’s doing it.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

That admission, Pfaff argued, should be the thing Republicans are talking about all the time — along with the good economic numbers. Instead, the party is distracted by Iran while a state government concedes on the record that thousands of illegal aliens are registered to vote and points the finger at a vendor rather than its own registration process.

80% Support — and Thune Says He Doesn’t Have the Votes

Which brings the conversation to the bill itself. By Pfaff’s account, 80% of the American public supports the Save America Act — and they are watching the Senate wonder aloud whether it will move at all. The majority leader’s answer has been that he does not have the votes. Pfaff’s response was direct:

“your job is to go get the votes, John Thune, and you’re not doing it”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Asked by Rush what senators actually fear in the SAVE Act, Pfaff gave two answers. Part of it is the fear of losing any effort to pass it. The other part is more revealing: some Republicans benefit from the current election process and do not want it fixed. That is the pressure campaign we detailed in our analysis of Thune defying the 80% — and it leads straight to Alaska.

Murkowski and the Ranked-Choice Deal That Blocked Joe Miller

Senator Lisa Murkowski’s stated objection is that the bill would disadvantage rural Alaskans. Pfaff wasn’t buying it — rural Alaskans have been voting for decades, ever since statehood in 1959, without issue. The real reason, he argued, is that Murkowski is a beneficiary of the system the bill would clean up. He counts her among the worst of the RINO Republicans who play these games:

“She worked together with the Democrat when she ran last time to stop Joe Miller, who won the Republican primary, from becoming the senator.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

For Pfaff, the Alaska story is a symptom of something much bigger — the steady dismantling of an American election system that was once the envy of the world:

“for 230 years we had the gold standard in elections— not perfect, just the gold standard of anything that’s ever existed in world history”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

And in his telling, Democrats have been allowed to radically transform those elections to the point that they don’t even look like elections anymore — with some Republicans frankly fine with it.

The One Thing That Should Unite Republicans

Rush turned to the perennial conservative weakness — message discipline. Conservatives prize their independent streak, he said, and that’s fine right up until it comes to messaging:

“the Democrats are good at getting behind one single message and pushing that hard, something, by the way, we don’t do very well at”
— John Rush to Reason

Pfaff agreed that conservatives are the “I’m not going to try to tell you how to live your life” crowd — but he rejected the idea that independence excuses disunity, because the right already has its unifying banner:

“we have one thing that unites us, and that’s the American Constitution”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The stakes, in his telling, are constitutional. The Democrat Party as presently constructed is seeking to overthrow the American Republic, and no substantive Democrat running for office is willing to say the DSA members driving that effort are crazy. Against that threat, Pfaff argued, senators like Cornyn and Tillis — if they are truly who they say they are — should be saying this fight will be tough but we’re going to make it happen. Instead, senators collect their $174,000 paychecks and the perks that come with them while flouting what the voters who gave them the majority asked them to do. That mandate was the 2024 election: the American people asked Congress to do what Donald Trump is doing, and this Congress has done precious little of it — the one big beautiful bill being an example that went nowhere near far enough. The fault, Pfaff concluded, is not primarily Trump’s:

“The real fault is Republicans who could have pushed that agenda forward, and instead they’re shooting themselves. They’re in a circular firing squad.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Key Takeaways

1. The fundamentals favor Republicans – The DNC is deep in debt and hocking its headquarters, the polling numbers are bad for Democrats, and the public gives Republicans a +2 edge on handling Iran. The only thing in the way, Pfaff says, is Republicans themselves.
2. Zero recess appointments since Reagan – Trump is the only president since Ronald Reagan with no recess appointments, while Cornyn and Tillis shut down the Todd Blanche nomination for Attorney General.
3. New Jersey admitted it – Mikey Sherrill conceded 6,600 illegals are registered to vote in New Jersey — Pfaff believes the real number is far higher — and blamed the computer company instead of the state’s own process.
4. 80% support, no floor action – The Save America Act has 80% public support, and Pfaff’s message to John Thune is blunt: your job is to go get the votes.
5. Murkowski games the system – Her rural-Alaskans objection masks self-interest: she and her Democrat opponent cut a ranked-choice deal that blocked Republican primary winner Joe Miller.
6. The Constitution is the uniting principle – Conservatives resist marching in step, but Pfaff argues the American Constitution should unite Republicans against a Democrat Party he says is seeking to overthrow the American Republic.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Jul 30, 2026 on Denver’s Rush to Reason with John Rush.