WASHINGTON (AP) — Top House Republicans are discussing legislation aimed at curbing the separation of migrant families at the border, GOP aides said Monday. The election-year response to public uproar over the Trump administration policy comes as a broader immigration package heads toward likely House defeat this week.

As showdown votes approached, President Donald Trump called anew for an end to the judicial process that currently awaits unauthorized immigrants entering the U.S. He also criticized the idea of hiring additional immigration judges to handle huge backlogs of such cases — even though congressional Republicans have proposed just that.

“Hiring many thousands of judges, and going through a long and complicated legal process, is not the way to go – will always be disfunctional (sic). People must simply be stopped at the Border and told they cannot come into the U.S. illegally,” President Trump said in a tweet June 25.

“If this is done, illegal immigration will be stopped in it’s (sic) tracks – and at very little, by comparison, cost. This is the only real answer – and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!” he tweeted.

Amid public and bipartisan pressure, President Trump last week reversed his policy of separating children from detained migrant parents. It has resulted in up to 2,300 children being taken from parents, though the government has said 522 have already been reunited with their families.

The broad Republican immigration bill contains language curbing those separations. It would also provide money for President Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico and give immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children a chance at eventually becoming citizens.

But that bill faces opposition from Democrats and many Republicans and seems likely to fail.

With the plucking of migrant children from families receiving relentless press coverage, GOP lawmakers are eager to pass something that addresses the issue. Many Republicans — especially those from competitive swing districts — view the separation of families as a political albatross, though the policy has been backed by some conservatives.

The Republican aides did not provide detail of what the narrow legislation would do. But it is expected to address a federal court settlement that has forbidden the government from keeping children and families in custody for more than 20 days.

The staffers described the discussions on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the record about private conversations.

A bill proposed by Republican senators would require the Homeland Security Department to keep immigrant families together during legal proceedings and take first steps for hiring 225 new immigration judges and providing more family detention centers.

Rep. Mark Meadows, leader of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, told Fox on Monday that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., was working on legislation to “keep those families together” if the broader immigration bill fails. McMorris-Rodgers, a member of the House GOP leadership, faces a potentially competitive re-election bid this fall.

“Some of the things that a lot of us want to do,” said Meadows, R-N.C. “So I would think if it doesn’t pass on Tuesday night you’d see a follow-up piece of legislation within days.”

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told Fox News on Sunday, “I think we at a minimum have to deal with the family separation. I’m a father of five.”

The GOP divisions come at a bad time for the party: Elections are approaching and immigration has riveted public attention for months. Republicans who are battling to retain House control have hoped to focus this fall’s campaigns on the economy and tax cuts.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he prefers to see parents and children detained together: “We do not want children taken away from their parents,” he said.

The measure is the product of weeks of bargaining between party conservatives and moderates. Even so, the two GOP factions have been unable to resolve their final differences and vote-counters have yet to round up a majority. Republicans are getting no help from Democrats, who uniformly oppose the legislation.

Another obstacle to consensus for Republicans is Trump. His recent statements on their bill and history of abruptly flip-flopping on past health care and spending measures have not been reassuring.

Last Tuesday, President Trump privately told House Republicans that he backed their legislation “1,000 percent” and would protect them during their campaigns, lawmakers said. By Friday, he was tweeting that “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration” and wait until after the November elections, when he said the GOP would approve tougher legislation because it will gain strength in Congress.

Top Republicans have wanted to hold the votes, win or lose, partly to defuse an effort by GOP moderates to force the chamber to vote on liberal-leaning bills helping immigrants win citizenship. Those measures could pass the House backed by Democrats and a few Republicans, an outcome that would enrage conservative voters.

In addition, some Republicans are eager for roll calls to show voters back home that they’ve tried to address the issue.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Flashing his trademark smile and touting a patched-up relationship with the president, Mitt Romney rolled through the Republican primary in his adopted Utah on Tuesday and took another step in his political comeback that would have him assume the Senate seat of retiring Orrin Hatch.

President Donald Trump congratulated Romney on the landslide victory, tweeting that “a great and loving family will be coming to D.C.”

Romney celebrated the win at sunset in front of picturesque mountains, surrounded by his wife, Ann, and some of their children and grandchildren as supporters munched hot dogs and snow cones.

The former presidential candidate promised to “make sure that the example I set as a leader is consistent with the values of our state and the great founding values of the United States of America” in Washington.

Romney has said he’ll speak out if the president says or does anything “significant” that is racist, sexist or anti-immigrant. But his tone has changed markedly since the 2016 presidential campaign when he blasted President Trump as a “phony” and a “fraud.”

This year, Romney predicted President Trump will be re-elected and accepted the president’s endorsement in the Senate race.

Romney defeated GOP state lawmaker Mike Kennedy, who had forced him into a primary by winning the vote of a hard right-leaning group of core GOP party members at the state convention in April. Neither received 60 percent of delegates’ votes to secure the nomination outright.

During the campaign, Kennedy tried to paint his political-heavyweight opponent as an out-of-towner who couldn’t get along withPresident Trump, but those attacks didn’t make much headway.

Kennedy said Tuesday he’s happy to back Romney as he goes up against Democrat Jenny Wilson in the general election.

Wilson promised a hard race Tuesday, saying in a statement that the country needs “a new generation of leaders” and criticizing him on immigration and tax policies.

Wilson will be the underdog in deep-red Utah, which has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate for decades.

Romney moved to Utah after his failed 2012 presidential run. He’s known there for turning around the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics after a bribery scandal and later becoming the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party.

The well of goodwill also extends to voters who support the president.

Bruce Rigby, 84, said he admires Romney for speaking his mind, but he’s also glad he has since come around to largely supporting the president.

“It’s like in a family. One person may not like the decision that someone makes, but it all comes out in the wash,” said Rigby, a retired manager for concrete and propane companies.

There are lingering questions for people like Emery Cook, a 34-year-old business owner who said he hopes Romney is a “true conservative” on issues like opposing abortion and strengthening border security.

“I hope he stands up to Trump when he needs to stand up to Trump, and I like that about Mitt,” he said.

In other noteworthy Utah races, U.S. Rep. John Curtis took a major step toward winning his first full term in Congress when he knocked out a hard-right opponent who’d aligned himself closely with President Trump.

The win over former state lawmaker Chris Herrod ended a rematch between the two men who also sparred months ago in the special election to finish Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s term representing the 3rd Congressional District.

“This is one of the most conservative districts in the country, and I think it’s validation tonight that we’re well-aligned with them,” Curtis said.

In the 1st Congressional District, the Democratic race between businessman Kurt Weiland and social worker Lee Castillo was too close to call. They’re competing to face eight-term Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop.

Salt Lake City Democrat Derek Kitchen, who rose to prominence when he and his partner were part of a lawsuit that overturned Utah’s ban on gay marriage, was locked in a Democratic primary for the state Legislature with physician Jennifer Plumb.

Democrats seized the House majority from President Donald Trump’s Republican Party on Tuesday in a suburban revolt that threatened what’s left of the president’s governing agenda. But the GOP gained ground in the Senate and preserved key governorships, beating back a “blue wave” that never fully materialized.

The mixed verdict in the first nationwide election of Trump’s presidency underscored the limits of his hardline immigration rhetoric in America’s evolving political landscape, where college-educated voters in the nation’s suburbs rejected his warnings of a migrant “invasion.” But blue-collar voters and rural America embraced his aggressive talk and stances.

The new Democratic House majority will end the Republican Party’s dominance in Washington for the final two years of Trump’s first term with major questions looming about health care, immigration and government spending.

“Tomorrow will be a new day in America,” declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who would be in line to become the next House speaker.

But the Democrats’ edge is narrow. With 218 seats needed for a majority, Democrats have won 219 and the Republicans 193, with winners undetermined in 23 races.

Trump was expected to address the results at a post-election news conference scheduled for midday Wednesday.

The president’s party will maintain control of the executive branch of the government, in addition to the Senate, but Democrats suddenly have a foothold that gives them subpoena power to probe deep into Trump’s personal and professional missteps — and his long-withheld tax returns.

Early Wednesday, Trump warned Democrats against using their new majority to investigate his administration.

“If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level,” Trump tweeted, “then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!” It wasn’t clear what “leaks” he was referring to.

It could have been a much bigger night for Democrats, who suffered stinging losses in Ohio and in Florida, where Trump-backed Republican Ron DeSantis ended Democrat Andrew Gillum’s bid to become the state’s first African-American governor.

The 2018 elections also exposed an extraordinary political realignment in an electorate defined by race, gender, and education that could shape U.S. politics for years to come.

The GOP’s successes were fueled by a coalition that’s decidedly older, whiter, more male and less likely to have college degrees. Democrats relied more upon women, people of color, young people and college graduates.

Record diversity on the ballot may have helped drive turnout.

Voters were on track to send at least 99 women to the House, shattering the record of 84 now. The House was also getting its first two Muslim women, Massachusetts elected its first black congresswoman, and Tennessee got its first female senator.

Three candidates had hoped to become their states’ first African-American governors, although just one — Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams — was still in the running.

Overall, women voted considerably more in favor of congressional Democratic candidates — with fewer than 4 in 10 voting for Republicans, according to VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 115,000 voters and about 20,000 nonvoters — conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

In suburban areas where key House races were decided, female voters skewed significantly toward Democrats by a nearly 10-point margin.

Democrats celebrated a handful of victories in their “blue wall” Midwestern states, electing or re-electing governors in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker was defeated by state education chief Tony Evers.

The road to a House majority ran through two dozen suburban districts Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Democrats flipped seats in suburban districts outside of Washington, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago and Denver. Democrats also reclaimed a handful of blue-collar districts carried by both former President Barack Obama and Trump.

The results were more mixed deeper into Trump country.

In Kansas, Democrat Sharice Davids beat a GOP incumbent to become the first gay Native American woman elected to the House. But in Kentucky, one of the top Democratic recruits, retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, lost her bid to oust to three-term Rep. Andy Barr.

Trump sought to take credit for retaining the GOP’s Senate majority, even as the party lost control of the House. In a tweet Wednesday, he referred to the election results as a “Big Victory.”

History was working against the president in both the House and the Senate: The president’s party has traditionally suffered deep losses in his first midterm election, and 2002 was the only midterm election in the past three decades when the party holding the White House gained Senate seats.

Democrats’ dreams of the Senate majority, always unlikely, were shattered after losses in top Senate battlegrounds: Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, North Dakota and Texas.

Some hurt worse than others.

In Texas, Sen Ted Cruz staved off a tough challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke, whose record-smashing fundraising and celebrity have set off buzz he could be a credible 2020 White House contender.

Trump encouraged voters to view the 2018 midterms as a referendum on his leadership, pointing proudly to the surging economy at his recent rallies.

Nearly 40 percent of voters cast their ballots to express opposition to the president, according to VoteCast, while one-in-four said they voted to express support for Trump.

Overall, 6 in 10 voters said the country was headed in the wrong direction, but roughly that same number described the national economy as excellent or good. Twenty-five percent described health care and immigration as the most important issues in the election.

Nearly two-thirds said Trump was a reason for their vote.

The president bet big on a xenophobic closing message, warning of an immigrant “invasion” that promised to spread violent crime and drugs across the nation. Several television networks, including the president’s favorite Fox News Channel, yanked a Trump campaign advertisement off the air on the eve of the election, determining that its portrayal of a murderous immigrant went too far.

One of Trump’s most vocal defenders on immigration, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, lost his bid for governor.

Kobach had built a national profile as an advocate of tough immigration policies and strict voter photo ID laws. He served as vice chairman of Trump’s now-defunct commission on voter fraud.

The president found partial success despite his current job approval, set at 40 percent by Gallup, the lowest at this point of any first-term president in the modern era. Both Barack Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s numbers were 5 points higher, and both suffered major midterm losses of 63 and 54 House seats respectively.

Meanwhile, the close of the 2018 midterm season marked the unofficial opening of the next presidential contest.

Several ambitious Democrats easily won re-election, including presidential prospects Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. A handful of others played outsized roles in their parties’ midterm campaigns, though not as candidates, and were reluctant to telegraph their 2020 intentions before the 2018 fight was decided. They included New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Said Warren: “This resistance began with women and it is being led by women tonight.”

This story pairs with “Utah GOP leaders push unity moving forward from midterm elections”

November’s midterm elections brought about some big changes in Republican Party leadership positions in Utah. No change was bigger than Sen. Orrin Hatch’s retirement and Mitt Romney’s election as Hatch’s replacement.

BYU political science professor Richard Davis said he thinks Romney’s election will bring some enthusiasm to the GOP.

“The Republican Party gained a star senator — Mitt Romney,” Davis said. “Hatch brought seniority, but Romney brings attention.”

While Romney won in a landslide election, his campaign highlighted some issues within the GOP, specifically in the candidate nomination process.

Candidate nomination process

Before 2014, the only way to get on the ballot in Utah was through the caucus system. Delegates for each precinct were assigned and then voted at conventions to support candidates and put them on the official ballot.

State Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Davis, said the primary caucus system skews public opinion and is not fully representative of what most people in the Republican Party think.

Weiler said the discrepancy exists because it takes time to understand and participate fully in the caucus system in Utah, and many people are too busy to become fully involved.

As a result, the most enthusiastic and extreme Republicans are the ones who become fully represented, voting in a disproportionate amount of delegates.

“They know they’re a minority,” Weiler said of right-wing extremists. “But their voices get amplified in the caucus convention system because they know how to get their people elected as delegates. If they’re 15 percent of the population, they can act like they’re more like 45 percent in the convention.”

Because of this imbalance, there can be a rift between what the majority of people support and what happens at the Republican conventions.

In 2014 Senate Bill 54 passed in an attempt to make sure the most supported candidate gets on the ballot. A document from the Lt. Gov.’s office explained the new bill as follows:

“SB54 does not eliminate the political party convention system. It does, however, introduce an alternative method for candidates to get on the primary election ballot. Depending on a party’s classification, a candidate may get on the primary ballot by gathering petition signatures, obtaining a nomination through the party’s convention, or both.”

Weiler, who voted in favor of the bill, said the change gave more power to the voice of the people.

What does this have to do with Romney?

Romney participated in both the political party convention system and signature gathering, which caused a stir among delegates at the convention.

“The signature path allows candidates to bypass the delegates and go directly to the people. The far right’s voice has always been amplified by the delegates,” Weiler said. “To extremists, if you collect even one signature you’re dead to them because you betrayed them.”

Because Romney opted to collect signatures to ensure his spot on the ballot, he lost support from the delegates. Even though Romney was a clear favorite to win the Senate seat, he actually lost narrowly to Matt Kennedy at the Republican state convention.

Because neither Kennedy or Romney won 60 percent of the vote, it forced a primary election that Romney won handily.

“Mitt Romney is a great example of the discrepancy you see in the delegates. He only got about 49 percent of the votes at the convention, and then he goes on the ballot and get’s 72 percent of the vote,” Weiler said. “That really shows you how out of touch with the mainstream party the delegates are.”

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Weiler said he thinks implementing the signature path was a step in the right direction for unifying the Republican Party but more can always be done.

“When you go in your neighborhood precinct caucus to get elected, you’re supposed to be a voice for the people in your neighborhood,” Weiler said. “But these delegates are often just a voice for themselves because they’re not reflective of the voices in their neighborhood.”

Davis said though the extreme political beliefs are often the loudest, facts suggest they’re in the minority. “Voting patterns suggest more moderation by Utah voters rather than an embrace of conservatism or liberalism,” he said.

In Romney’s case, skewed delegates didn’t hold back the popular candidate, but the discrepancy between delegate vote and popular vote highlighted the issues within the system.

This story pairs with “Romney election exemplifies disparity between GOP convention, population”

The midterm elections in November brought big changes to the Republican Party in Utah. In addition to Mitt Romney’s senate race victory, Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, lost to Ben McAdams by a total of 694 votes, and Donald Trump’s approval ratings are lower than ever before in Utah.

In the wake of the political whirlwind of midterms, Republicans now have a chance to stop and evaluate the current state of the party.

When asked whether there was a little bit of division among the Republican Party,BYU political science professor Richard Davis said, “A little bit? A lot. And yes, it was caused by Donald Trump. Trump is leading the party towards more nativism, isolationism and economic protectionism. Some Republicans favor that, but many are repelled by it.”

Trump’s approval numbers in Utah were never extremely high. In January 2017, Trump had a 58 percent approval rating. Since then, his approval numbers have dropped by 23 percent: the biggest drop in any state that voted for Trump in 2016.

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(Map created by Jefferson Jarvis)

State Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Davis, disagrees Trump is the reason the GOP is becoming less unified.

“I think the divide among Republicans is getting worse in Utah not because of Trump, although he hasn’t helped,” Weiler said. “This was going on long before Trump, it’s been over 20 years. The most apparent that it’s ever been is after (President) Obama in his first term when the tea party uprising happened.”

Weiler said the biggest division in the party is the right-wing extremists who are often the loud minority.

Utah County Republican Party Chairman Rob Craig said small factions can gain a disproportional influence in the precinct caucus system because leaders know how to take advantage of the rules.

“Instead of the party looking within and asking how we can fix the concerns, people are focused on using party rules to their advantage,” Craig said. “There needs to be an emphasis on product rather than process.”

Though some, like Weiler, said Trump isn’t the cause of the problem, Davis said Trump’s policy lines up with the more extreme members of the party.

Davis also said the higher number of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah creates a unique disapproval of Trump’s past. “(Latter-day Saint voters) are repelled by his personal style and background, even if the more die-hard Republicans agree with his policy actions.”

The path to unity in the party is unclear. Craig said the most enthusiastic Republicans are often extremist compared to the moderate majority, and their efforts can end up doing more harm than good.

“Unfortunately, those who think they are the saviors of the party are actually the demons destroying it,” Craig said. “God bless them for their heart and desire, but sometimes that passion has grown into disruption.” 

Although the GOP has its struggles, Craig said he is proud of the overall Republican brand and feels there is hope in the future.

The hope of the party, Craig said, is in working with the younger generation, teaching students to be involved in politics and focusing on commonalities rather than differences. “Ronald Reagan always said, ‘The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20 percent traitor,’ and I stand by that comment.”