Republican Torches Democrats Over Issue Own Voters Overwhelmingly Back

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty suggested on Sunday that Democrats’ fight against federal voter ID law is related to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the country under former President Joe Biden.

Hagerty appeared on Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo to talk about Republicans’ efforts to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to enshrine voter ID into federal law.

“The American public are broadly in support of showing voter ID. It’s a north of 80% issue for the American public. You’ve got to ask yourself, who are the Democrats in the Senate representing? Over 70% of Democrats want this, yet we won’t have a single Democrat that will support it. Why is that?” said Hagerty.

The Tennessee Republican pointed to the Democratic push to pass HR-1, a federal overhaul of election law, in the first half of the Biden presidency. Under HR-1, the law would have created a workaround for people to avoid voter ID requirements in the dozens of states that have such laws.

Democrats “tried to come in and change to do away with voter ID across the nation, to enlist 16-year-olds to vote, felons to vote, using taxpayer dollars to support campaigns and, frankly, to pay their own candidates,” said Hagerty.

Voter ID requirements are an easy step to take to secure elections that do not unduly burden voters, and a federal law does not affect states’ constitutional duties to set the time, manner, and place of elections, Hagerty said.

The Tennessee Republican then suggested that Democratic resistance to a national voter ID requirement is part of a strategy to bolster Democrats’ chances of winning elections through illegal voting.

“It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but the reason that it’s not is because the Democrats under the Biden administration flooded this country with tens of millions of illegal aliens,” said Hagerty. “They want chaos in the elections. They want no voter ID. And so you’ve got to really ask yourselves, who do they represent and why are they trying to do this?”

Today, exclusively on @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty @BillHagertyTN spoke about Democrats vowing to filibuster the GOP-Backed Voter ID Bill. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/2yy6vpvQb2

— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) February 15, 2026

The push to pass the SAVE Act received a key promise of support recently from Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, giving the SAVE Act majority support in the Senate. Republicans are still far short of the 60-vote threshold to override a filibuster.

Collins gave her support for the GOP election reform measure on the condition that Republicans do not strike down the filibuster to pass it.

“I support the version of the SAVE America Act that recently passed the House,” Collins said in a statement to Maine Wire. “The law is clear that in this country only American citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections. In addition, having people provide an ID at the polls, just as they have to do before boarding an airplane, checking into a hotel, or buying an alcoholic beverage, is a simple reform that will improve the security of our federal elections and will help give people more confidence in the results.”