Senate Majority Leader John Thune says Republicans still lack a clear path to lock in daylight saving time year-round, even as President Trump intensifies pressure on holdouts.

Thune told Politico the White House feels strongly about ending the twice-a-year clock change, but the votes are not lined up.

“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues. It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet,” Thune said.

The candid assessment lands less than a month before Election Day, after Trump elevated the Sunshine Protection Act and the House already passed the bill 308-117 in July. The measure would let states adopt permanent daylight saving time. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida is still pushing for a Senate vote in the lame-duck window in November and December.

Trump has framed the clock switch as costly, disruptive, and unpopular with most Americans who prefer evening sunlight. He stepped up the campaign over the weekend with blunt posts on Truth Social, where his account has more than 13 million followers.

Trump calls the clock switch a national waste

On Friday, Trump laid out the case against the biannual change in plain terms.

“A ridiculous Clock changing process that takes place twice a year, costs our Country a fortune, is bad for Crime, stress on people, Sports, and just about everything else you can imagine.”

He followed with a second point aimed at public preference:

“People don’t want to go around changing their Clocks anymore and, besides, far and away, most people like having an hour of extra sunlight in the evening, rather than in the morning.”

By Saturday he zeroed in on one Republican holdout, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and urged voters in the state to weigh in. Trump called the Sunshine Protection Act a bipartisan win waiting to happen and said almost everybody wants it, “except for Tom Cotton.” He also posted Cotton’s private cellphone number and encouraged calls.

Cotton has opposed the bill, arguing the country already tried year-round daylight saving time and repealed it once people discovered the hardship of late-winter sunrises in many regions. That stance has put him at the center of a familiar tension inside the conference, where Cotton has held firm against year-round daylight saving time even under direct presidential pressure.

Florida’s Rick Scott is taking the opposite approach. He owns the Sunshine Protection Act in the Senate and says states should decide for themselves. Permanent daylight saving time is especially popular in places like Florida, where evening light has commercial and lifestyle value.

“I’ve got my Sunshine Protection Act. I’m working on a vote on that. We’re going to have a vote on that. It [lets] states make their own decisions.”

Northern and rural senators raise school-bus safety fears

Not every Republican sees the trade-off the same way. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said Monday the opposition runs deeper than the White House may realize, especially outside Sun Belt states.

“I think there’s more opposition to it than the president realizes. There’s some real safety concerns, particularly in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus at very early hours.”

Thune himself comes from that northern lane. The South Dakota Republican voted against making daylight saving time year-round when the Senate Commerce Committee considered it earlier this year. He has been direct about why.

“I’m from a northern clime. I voted against it in committee.”

That regional split is the core problem for floor managers. The House vote was lopsided and bipartisan. The Senate picture is messier: popular in some states, contested in others, and tangled with school schedules, winter sunrises, and rural bus routes. Thune’s job is to count votes he does not yet have.

The same caution has shown up on other Trump priorities this year. When the president pressed the chamber to scrap August recess for the SAVE America Act, Thune poured cold water on canceling recess, saying Democrats would not supply the votes and Republicans would not scrap the legislative filibuster. “Give me a rationale or a path to getting success,” he told reporters then, language that matches his daylight-saving assessment now.

Senate process often collides with White House urgency. Members have already watched unfinished business pile up as the chamber packed up until November amid midterm majority worries, leaving popular measures stranded until lame duck or next year.

Scott wants a lame-duck vote; the calendar is short

Scott is still working the November-December window. A post-election session can sometimes free members from primary pressure and open room for cross-aisle deals. But Thune’s public read is that consensus has not formed yet, and conversations alone do not equal 60 votes if a filibuster materializes.

The Sunshine Protection Act’s design, letting states opt into permanent daylight saving time, is meant to ease that friction. Supporters argue it respects local preference rather than imposing a single national clock. Critics counter that a patchwork of permanent daylight saving time and standard time creates its own confusion for travel, broadcasting, and commerce, and that dark winter mornings remain a safety issue for children in northern latitudes.

Trump’s weekend posts treated the dispute as a political test as much as a policy one. By naming Cotton and inviting Arkansas voters to call, he made clear he views resistance as out of step with public demand. The House’s 308-117 tally gives him a strong talking point: the lower chamber already delivered a broad majority.

Republican fractures on presidential priorities are not new. Earlier this cycle, four Senate Republicans broke with Trump on an Iran war-powers vote that still fell short, a reminder that conference unity is never automatic even when the White House is fully engaged.

Democrats, for their part, have shown they will block GOP-backed measures when the votes are there to do it, as when Senate Democrats blocked a data-center bill and denied Republicans a midterm energy-cost win. On daylight saving time, the larger obstacle Thune describes is inside his own conference and the map of northern and rural states.

What still has to be resolved

Several practical questions remain open. The full Senate calendar placement for the Sunshine Protection Act is unclear. The exact committee vote tally from earlier this year is not public in the current reporting. Cotton’s office has not supplied a fresh on-the-record quote beyond the long-standing position that late-winter sunrises once forced a repeal. And it is not yet known how many other Republicans share Wicker’s safety concerns or Thune’s northern-clime skepticism.

Scott insists a vote is coming. Thune insists the path is not clear. Trump insists the public is ready and the clock change is a needless burden on crime, stress, sports, and daily life. Those three statements can all be true at once in a Senate that still runs on 60-vote math and regional realities.

For now, the House bill sits waiting. The president has made his preference unmistakable. The majority leader has told anyone listening that preference is not yet a whip count.

Americans who are tired of changing the clocks twice a year deserve a straight answer from Congress, not another year of gridlock dressed up as process.