About two-thirds of voters who identify with the Democratic Socialists of America support a core elements of the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. While general support for voter ID has hovered at 80%, voters identifying as DSA Democrats are considered the furthest left in the Democratic party. However, the DSA national organization staunchly opposes the proposal. Buried on page 23 of the crosstab data in a Fox News poll released last week, 66% of “DSA Dem” respondents supported requiring photo ID to register to vote. Respondents answered the question, “Do you think people should be required to show a valid form of state or federally issued photo identification to prove U.S. citizenship before being allowed to register to vote?” This contrasts sharply with statements issued by the DSA this year that called such laws “restrictive” and “racist,” and called the SAVE America Act a “poll tax.” More than 70% of registered Democrats support proof of citizenship for voter registration, and 67% of self-identified liberals supported it. Nearly all Republicans and conservatives, 96% of each category of respondents, supported it. The poll surveyed 1,003 registered voters. Voters who identify with the DSA movement are typically young and educated. The survey showed that 82% of voters under age 30, and 79% of voters with a college degree, support photo ID to verify citizenship when registering to vote. The SAVE America Act passed the Republican-controlled House but is stalled in the Senate. The legislation would require photo ID to vote, in addition to mandating proof of citizenship to register to vote. Support among self-identified DSA Democrats dropped to 58% on the question of requiring photo ID to vote, as opposed to registering to vote. The question was, “Do you think people should be required to show a valid form of state or federally issued photo identification to prove U.S. citizenship before being allowed to vote?” Overall support for requiring proof of citizenship to vote, as opposed to registering to vote, also dropped to 77%. The poll showed that 62% of Democrats supported the policy, while 95% of Republicans did. “Even socialists think voter ID is common sense, yet Democrat politicians keep blocking the SAVE America Act and attacking election safeguards because they know they can’t win fair and square,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ally Triolo said in a public statement following publication of the poll. In June, after a Supreme Court ruling on state redistricting, the DSA issued a statement that denounced voter ID laws, saying, “Within hours of the decision’s announcement, Republican attorneys general in Texas, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi stated that they would immediately institute restrictive voter ID laws and gerrymandering schemes, legislation that the now-gutted enforcement procedures of the Voting Rights Act might have overturned.” In February, the DSA issued a statement calling the SAVE America Act a “sweeping voter suppression bill.” “Our candidates for office stand firm against racist voter ID laws and secret poll taxes like the ‘SAVE America Act,’” the DSA statement says. “Right now, our socialists in office are working to build a society that works for everyone. In our chapters, we continue to educate working-class voters about the needless complications in our electoral system, from party registration dates to laws like these.”

Ohio has many crucial statewide elections this year, including the race for secretary of state. The top two candidates for the job have different views on secure elections in the Buckeye State. This November, Treasurer Robert Sprague, the Republican nominee, is running against state Rep. Allison Russo, the Democrat. Sprague is focused on election integrity and ensuring that only American citizens can register to vote. Russo says Ohio elections are secure and that Republicans use the issue to suppress minority voters. In an interview with the Daily Signal, Sprague contrasted Ohio and New Jersey, where last month it was revealed that more than 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote. Sprague called the situation, including the response from New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, “concerning.” “Look, we’re commonsense Midwesterners. We want to have good elections, and the way that you have good elections is to have secure elections. And you want to have good systems and secure systems that people can trust,” he said. That’s why Ohio passed Issue 2 four years ago with nearly 77% of the vote, he added, noting that the ballot initiative amended the state constitution to allow only American citizens to vote in Ohio elections. His opponent, Russo, voted against it. “There’s a few things that you own as a state representative, and one of them is your vote,” Sprague said. “I don’t think [voting by noncitizens] should be up for debate.” Russo on Elections In a statement to the Daily Signal, Russo noted that noncitizen voting “is and has been illegal for decades.” “Republicans love to bury restrictions for legal voters in these bills so that no one notices,” she said. “I will always stand up for the right of every eligible voter to have their voice heard and their vote counted in fair, free, and secure elections.” “[Sprague is] an election denier who wants to make voting inconvenient for eligible voters so that his political cronies remain unaccountable to everyday Ohioans,” Russo said. She added that her Republican opponent “proves over and over again that he will continue to use this office for partisan games and political theater that disrespects Ohio voters and election workers.” Other Election Security Issues Sprague said he supports multiple election security measures, such as requiring photo ID for in-person voting and mail-in ballots, as well as getting rid of ballot harvesting drop boxes. Ohio already has voter ID for in-person voting. However, this November, Ohioans have an opportunity to enshrine it in the state constitution by voting on Issue 3. In June, Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed legislation that would have required ID for mail-in ballots. Sprague said he believes Issue 3 will pass “overwhelmingly” in November. “It’s not just about policy, it’s about permanence,” Sprague said. “You put the most important things in the state constitution, and this is incredibly important, and then it can’t be removed unless you have a vote of the people.” Election integrity has been a top issue for other Ohio Republicans this year. Gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pushed for voter ID in May, and state Sen. Jane Timken sponsored a resolution on the same issue. One issue Sprague worries about is Russo’s support of automatic voter registration, which she backed in 2020. He said the policy is concerning to him because “it doesn’t even need to go to the Legislature.” While Ohioans will be making up their minds between now and Nov. 3, Heritage Action State Director Hilary Jackson called Sprague “the clear best choice for the secretary of state.” “He has proven to conservatives time and time again that he will uphold the values and principles that we hold so dear, especially when it comes to election integrity,” she said. “Allison Russo on the other hand, would only be a pawn of the Democratic socialist party used to destroy our constitutional republic.” The past two secretaries of state—Frank LaRose and current Sen. Jon Husted—have both been Republicans. Jennifer Brunner was the last Democrat elected to the position, in 2006.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, has just stirred up a lot of controversy. He said that he wanted to go after property owners who had homes worth more than $5 million, and they were likely to be second homes.   In other words, they had a primary residence elsewhere, either in the state of New York, outside the state, or in a foreign country.  And he wanted to tax them with a new surcharge in addition to property tax. But then, when the letters went out, they didn’t just go to the upper middle class or the wealthy who owned $5 million properties. Mamdani went back on his word and sent almost 950,000 letters out to property owners who, on their register, had a home worth more than $1 million.  Now, this is where it gets interesting. He’s under a lot of criticism for this because he was bragging and he kind of, as he always does in his cute socialist smile … Remember, he got in front of Ken Griffin’s second home and looked into the camera and said, “Ha ha, we’re coming for you,” type of thing. This email was supposed to be cute.  Something’s coming in the mail.   But here’s the problem. A person can have a relatively modest house, and maybe they inherited it from their parents or they bought it 50 years ago for $50,000, and in crowded New York it’s worth $1 million. They’re hardly wealthy.  But more importantly, in the United States, Mr. Mamdani isn’t familiar, apparently, with an age-old foundational principle that you’re innocent until proven guilty. In other words, you don’t word a letter to people that says, “I assume you are guilty of having a house which is not your principal residence. You have three weeks to prove to me that you’re not guilty, and then maybe I will adjudicate you’re innocent and not slap a surtax.”  Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of people getting a letter in the mail that they owe $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or $80,000 on top of their property taxes and going into panic and then going to the New York City website with hundreds of thousands of other people trying to get in and say, “Look, I’ve been in this house. I’m not a second-property owner”?  It was designed to cause confusion and anger and chaos and make Mamdani an object of fear. Don’t cross the mayor. He has a long memory.  But here’s the other thing. Besides inverting the idea to “you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent,” what’s wrong with having a second house? It’s a free country. You have a right to have a house.  So what was he doing by sending this letter and threatening you? Well, one of the things is he’s broke. He’s had all of these lavish welfare ideas that are not fundable because he’s driving out the upper middle class and the wealthy, and they’re leaving in droves.  Some estimates say maybe $11 billion already in real value and revenue. So he needs money.  And more importantly, by sending this surtax out in addition to property taxes, if you have a property that’s worth $1 million or $2 million and you’re paying $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 in property tax, and this surtax comes in at another $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000, a lot of people are saying, “You know, I’m not getting that much rent,” if it is a second home.  If it’s their primary home, they’re saying, “I already pay this huge property tax and I have maintenance costs.” If you’re renting, you have rental costs. You’re subject to oversight. There are rental subsidies for your renter. There’s rent control.  And so what he’s trying to do is force people to sell. Either sell their second home, or he considers them affluent enough that they had their turn, and it’s time to sell because they will not be able to afford, especially retired people, a surcharge property tax on top of a property tax, on top of insurance.  And if you have a lot of sales, the house price drops. If the house price drops, Mamdani can come in and either buy them for the city or subsidize the, quote, “repressed poor” to buy. It’s a huge redistribution plan.  There’s a third, more sinister agenda behind Mamdani’s enemies list. If you send out the names of over 900,000 New Yorkers in various boroughs, and you say, “These people, I accuse these people, until they can prove me wrong, of having a second property or a vacant property that is worth over a million dollars.”  And you give the name, as he did, and the address, as he did, then you’re going to have a lot of envious people saying, “Oh, Mr. Smith down the road, he’s on that list. Oh, Mr. Jones, I didn’t know that he wasn’t living in that house. Hmm.”  And that’s the best interpretation.  There’s two, I think, more accurate and maybe even more disturbing.  We have an epidemic in this country of squatting. So if you are a potential squatter where the law protects you, once you get possession of an empty home it’s almost impossible to evict you unless you spend thousands of dollars.  So all these would-be squatters are going to be looking at this list, and they’re going to say, “Well, the mayor of New York accuses this person at this address of having a vacant home. Let’s check it out. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe we’ll go down the list, five, six, seven, 10 of them, but we will find a vacant house, and we’ll know he’s not going to come, and we’ll just crash and move in. And then the whole legal apparatus of the city protects us, and we can get two, three, four years of free rent.”  An even worse scenario is there’s a lot of home burglary professionals in New York, especially in New York. And they are saying it’s much easier to break into a vacant home than one occupied.  And these homes, well, they’re all worth a million and some are worth a lot more. But we’ll just give our team a scouting expedition and go and see, drive by these addresses, and see whether they’re actually occupied or not, and then we can come back and break into them.  Do we think Mamdani didn’t know that? Of course he knew that.  But what am I getting at? He is a redistributionist. He believes that people got money through malpractice, unethical activity, criminality, kind of like [Honore de] Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune is a crime,” with himself exempted and his socialist colleagues, of course, exempted from the consequences of their own ideology.  But what he’s trying to do is put fear into people that he’s going to do something or else. And the “or else” is, “You better come and beg and beg and beg to me that this is your home and you’re occupying it, and you better do it in three weeks or else.”  It reminds me, in conclusion, of a general truism that we should apply to all of these socialist candidates.  Socialists run as moderates. They disguise their socialism. Maybe the socialist activists will be honest enough to say they want to abolish the Senate or abolish the Supreme Court or the presidency or get rid of the border or destroy the Pentagon, but elected officials don’t say that when they run as candidates.  Once they’re in power, however, they’re not moderates. But they’re not even socialists. They rule as communists.  So if you see a socialist, he will run and convince you that he is a moderate. When he gets into power, he will think socialism is a fuddy-duddy, moderate waste of time, and he will be a full-fledged Marxist.  Trust me, it’ll happen. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Hollywood is limiting screens. As ironic as it may seem, the Los Angeles Unified School District, which encompasses Hollywood, will limit student screen time in schools this academic year. More schools need to follow suit and implement policies aimed at reducing children’s screen time—even for educational purposes. In its announcement earlier this year, the LAUSD’s policy includes limiting screen time to one hour daily for third to fifth graders, eliminating it altogether for first grade and younger, and introducing parental consent for digital tools. Additionally, the resolution requires schools to prohibit use of devices outside on campus—including outside classrooms—and to block social media, YouTube, and video game platforms. The decision may seem countercultural, but it is informed by data.  Adolescents who spend more than five hours per day on digital devices are 70% more likely to have suicidal thoughts or actions than those who spend less than an hour a day. Children who use screens for more than two hours a day have a 46% increased risk of delayed expressive language. In 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that excessive screen time increased the odds of poor sleep from 29% to 49%. As the LAUSD realized, the data in support of removing screens from classrooms is overwhelming. The recent K.G.M. v. Meta et al. case ignited a debate over whether Meta and YouTube can be held responsible for their addictive products. The companies claimed they cannot be held responsible since they do not create the content hosted by the platforms, but they ultimately lost the case. Recently, the surgeon general published an advisory relating to screen use and children. “Harmful screen use among children and adolescents,” the advisory states, “has become a public health concern; growing up surrounded by screens of all types—televisions, computers, tablets, smartphones—is now the norm.” This doesn’t have to be the norm, however, and the surgeon general’s warning and the LA Schools’ resolution aim to flip the script. Nicholas Kardaras’ book “Glow Kids” attests to the dangers of screens. In it, Kardaras, a psychologist, recounts shocking stories of kids he met who could not function well due to high screen time. “That iPad that your child’s school thought would be so wonderful as a first-grade learning tool,” he concludes, “is making your child’s brain resemble that of a drug addict.” Many children now grow up with their own smartphones, to which they have unfettered access 24/7. Why would schools want to play around with a device that can immensely harm a child’s health? Some states, such as New York and Virginia, have implemented cellphone bans, with the hope of preventing phone distractions during class time and antisocial behaviors outside of the classroom. Virginia’s Executive Order stresses widespread social media and cell phone usage as a driver of chronic health conditions, including anxiety and depression, affecting teens. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission recently adopted a notice of proposed rulemaking to review its telecommunications discount program for schools and libraries in light of screen-time concerns. Banning personal phones was the first step in overhauling students’ relationships with screens in school; limiting screen time for schoolwork is the next. Critics may argue that limiting or eliminating screen time is impractical because schools have already invested in devices with screens and students have become accustomed to them. However, school districts like LAUSD are proving it is possible. Schools across America must protect their kids from screen-related dangers while optimizing learning. If Hollywood saw the danger and acted, it is time for all schools in America to act on behalf of children.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told conservative grassroots leaders in Phoenix Saturday to “never give up” in the “battle” for America’s future, as upcoming November elections could shake up control of Congress. Biggs spoke at Heritage Action’s Southwest Sentinel Summit, designed to train grassroots leaders on key policy issues and strategies for rallying the conservative movement. The Republican nominee for governor gave attendees an inside look at major issues facing the country: border security, affordability, election integrity, and the future of the Republican and Democratic parties. Heritage Action Sentinel Summit (Emma Dayton/Daily Signal) Biggs said illegal immigration is still a very real issue in border states like Arizona, which has two weak points of entry. “ I would just say there are two spots on the entire southwestern border, which runs from San Diego to McAllen, Texas, that really have some problems still … and they’re both in Arizona,” Biggs said. The representative said closing the border for good is a “solvable” issue but that it will take continued efforts. “From multiple sources I have on the ground, there’s still about a thousand illegal aliens a day who are entering our country,” Biggs said. [RELATED: Talarico Says He’s for Border Security. His Texas House Voting Record Tells a Different Story.] Biggs also encouraged grassroots leaders to remain watchful over the national debt, which approaches $40 trillion. “Every national security review that we’ve had over the last 25 years has said that the number one threat to America’s national security is our debt,” Biggs said. Biggs noted Congress and state governments must eliminate waste by enacting tax cuts and spending cuts. “Arizona is the first state to actually put into enactment the full One Big Beautiful Bill conformity on tax cuts,” Biggs said. The representative encouraged grassroots leaders to put pressure on the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and voter ID to register and vote in federal elections. “You need to contact John Thune and remind him about the SAVE America Act,” Biggs said. Biggs said America cannot continue to “forgive” the “sins” that occurred under the Biden administration. “We forget how bad it was under Joe Biden,” Biggs said. “We forget the inflation that was there. We forget the border was open. You have to remind the members of the Senate. They have to be reminded. I would say you should also CC Speaker [Mike] Johnson on that, so he knows that you’re watching him too.” [RELATED: Senate Leadership Begs Colleagues to Deflect on SAVE America Act] Biggs closed his talk by contrasting the Republican and Democratic parties as they campaign to win the upcoming November midterms. “You are watching the implosion and the destruction of the hard Left and the Democrat Party,” Biggs said. “They’re going to try to use every amount of every dollar they possibly can to cling, cling to survival of their party and their positions.” Biggs said the future of the conservative movement hinges on getting voters to the polls in November but reassured attendees he remains hopeful. “The conservative movement is vibrant and strong and alive, and if we can get people to the polls this year, we will win,” Biggs said. When asked what single message he would give to Arizonans, Biggs offered the same encouragement Winston Churchill gave to the United Kingdom in 1941 during World War II. “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up,” Biggs said. “We’re going to win this battle.”