Senate kills Iran war powers resolution one last time before the midterm bell, 50 to 49

The Republican-led Senate on Thursday rejected a resolution that would have directed President Donald Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran, voting 49 to 50 in what was almost certainly the chamber's last chance to go on record about the nearly seven-month war before November's midterm elections.

Four Republicans crossed party lines to support it. One Democrat voted no. It still wasn't enough.

What happened, and who broke ranks

In the 49-to-50 vote, the Senate failed to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran less than six weeks before the midterm elections. Four Republicans voted in favor: Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against it. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland did not vote.

Tillis, who is leaving the Senate in January, was the only Republican to vote in favor of a war powers resolution for the first time. His vote attracted immediate attention on Capitol Hill, because unlike Paul, Collins, and Murkowski, he had not previously broken with the majority on Iran. Tillis warned in July that he would take a "very different posture" if the fighting continued beyond Sept. 10, 60 days after the administration formally notified Congress that hostilities had resumed and restarted the war powers clock.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is also retiring after this year, remained opposed to the resolution despite hearing criticism of the war from constituents. He declined to explain his vote on Thursday.

An affirmative vote would have directed Trump to remove U.S. troops from hostilities in Iran unless Congress explicitly approves the war. The measure, a concurrent resolution, does not carry the force of law and is never signed by the president, making the vote mostly symbolic. Still, the tally mattered politically.

The war's toll on the midterm map

Thursday's vote came after Trump warned in an address to the United Nations this week that a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran may not come until after the midterm elections in November. That statement landed badly in several competitive Senate states where gas prices are a first-order campaign issue.

A Congressional Budget Office report released last week found that the war has driven up energy prices mainly due to disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route through which one fifth of the world's crude oil flows, adding 2.3 percentage points to the annualized rate of inflation of 5.3 percent in the second quarter of 2026. The price of regular gasoline is up around 52 percent from the start of the war at around $4.48 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with diesel prices up 71 percent in the same period.

Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska has a blunt message for Trump, saying diesel prices are "too damn high." He is not alone. Nearly seven months into the war with Iran, the conflict has driven diesel prices to record highs and squeezed the global oil market. With midterm elections rapidly approaching, GOP candidates in competitive races are backtracking their support and increasingly calling for the war to end. Those candidates include Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and Rep. Ashley Hinson, Iowa's Republican Senate nominee.

A CNN/SSRS poll conducted Sept. 16 to 17 found that just 33 percent of Americans approve of Trump's job performance, while 67 percent disapprove. Seventy-three percent disapprove of his handling of the war, and the same share disapproves of his handling of the economy.

A poll conducted Sept. 18 to 21 found that a slim majority of 53 percent of Republicans say that going to war in Iran was the right decision, a drop of 15 percentage points from the 68 percent who said the same in April.

A New York Times/Siena poll conducted Sept. 8 to 13 among 1,503 likely voters found that 50 percent trust Democrats to do a better job handling foreign wars, while 43 percent of voters trust Republicans more.

The Senate's long count on Iran

The Senate has considered Iran war powers resolutions 14 times, voting in favor only twice, since U.S. and Israeli forces began bombing Iran on February 28. The House has held six votes, with three in favor of ending the conflict. Only one has passed both chambers, and the White House ignored the result.

The White House has effectively ignored that vote, arguing that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. A separate war powers resolution approved by the House last week garnered 220 votes, with a record seven Republicans joining Democrats in support.

Democrats framed Thursday's vote as an exercise in political accountability, not legislative change. The vote reflects Democrats' months-long strategy to force votes on war powers resolutions to highlight Republican support for the unpopular conflict. The Senate vote, days after Trump's address to the United Nations, is likely the last chance for lawmakers to go on record about the war ahead of November.

Meanwhile, on the Senate floor: the college sports bill

Thursday brought a second notable vote. The Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill backed by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz of Texas and ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington, cleared a final procedural filibuster vote Thursday and moved toward a Senate floor vote on final passage.

A bill to create nationwide rules for compensating college athletes and limiting athletic conference consolidation is on a glide path to passage in the Senate after it cleared a filibuster Thursday. The measure guarantees athletes the right to cash in on their name, image and likeness. It also sets rules on athletes' ability to transfer schools and requires top-tier schools to maintain programs and scholarships for sports that don't draw as much attention, such as Olympic events. The bill cleared on a 74-to-25 vote, far more than the 60 needed to advance, but still needs to pass the House.

The bill would cap revenue sharing at 22 percent of the average annual athletic revenue generated by Power Four schools, and would establish federal rules governing athlete compensation and NIL agreements. The top four athletic conferences would also be barred from consolidating further or growing too big.

Even if the bill clears the Senate, it still faces a difficult path in the House, which is currently out of session until after the November midterms. Co-sponsor Cantwell said the lopsided nature of the vote left her "cautiously optimistic" it could get through the House, which has failed repeatedly to pass a different version of a college sports bill.

Not everyone on the Democratic side agreed. Before Thursday's vote, a rare scene played out on the Senate floor as two long-tenured senators from the same party, Cantwell and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is staunchly in opposition, verbally sparred. While noting their respect for one another, the lawmakers passionately defended their positions.

What to Watch

• Final Senate passage of the Protect College Sports Act: The bill still needs to pass through one final Senate vote before moving to the House, but House representatives are currently out of session until after the November midterm elections. Whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune schedules that vote before members leave town will determine whether the bill lives or dies in the 119th Congress.
• Republican war defections in the final stretch: With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, GOP candidates in competitive races are backtracking support and increasingly calling for the war to end. Watch whether Trump responds by offering a diplomatic timeline or doubling down, as his U.N. comments suggest the latter.
• Gas prices and the CBO inflation report: Analysts have argued that gasoline prices represent the most direct channel through which the costs of the Iran war are transmitted to American voters, and that domestic electoral pressure from fuel costs is a primary political driver behind the Trump administration's push toward a ceasefire ahead of the November midterms. Any movement at the pump in the next six weeks will echo directly in House and Senate battlegrounds.
• Fetterman's crossover vote: The Pennsylvania Democrat was again the lone member of his party to side with Republicans on the war. Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa, in a tight race for an open Senate seat, is among Republicans who have recently begun speaking out about the war. That seat is now one of the sharpest tests of whether war fatigue can flip a chamber.

Sources: NPR | The Washington Post | The National News | CNBC | The Washington Sun | The Washington Times | Time | The Hill | Washington Times (college sports) | Senate Roll Call Vote 243 (119th Congress)