The nation’s clocks went back an hour Sunday as daylight saving time came to an end. If President Donald Trump gets his wish, they could soon move forward again — potentially this month.
Trump has continued to advocate for the Sunshine Protection Act, which he says would allow more Americans to enjoy daylight later in the day by permanently setting the clocks one hour forward. The legislation, which passed the House in July, has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and other lawmakers who say that the current system of “springing forward” every March and “falling back” every November is a preferable compromise.
The president, who has touted polls showing most Americans don’t like those clock changes, had hoped to trumpet that Republicans had stopped those time shifts before the midterm elections, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe administration policy. The language of the legislation that passed the House calls for an immediate adoption of year-round daylight saving time by rewriting a federal law that sets time across the country.
Had the Sunshine Protection Act been enacted earlier this year, there would have been no clock change on Sunday. Instead, the nation would have just continued with clocks permanently set one hour forward, with no more “spring forwards” or “fall backs.”
“The Senate should vote it out and go back to one time and no more changing the clock,” Trump said at a rally last week in Mississippi.
But since daylight saving time has ended, enacting the law now would mean an immediate one-hour time jump forward across the country, barring changes to the legislation.
Alternately, Senate leaders could wait to pass the bill until daylight saving time resumes next March, avoiding an awkward midwinter time jump. But that would come after this session of Congress ends, meaning that the legislative process would start over, and the Sunshine Protection Act would have to pass the House again, too.
Asked last week if Trump still supported the bill in its current form, a White House spokesman said the president remained committed.
“The President has been clear: He wants the Senate to pass the Sunshine Protection Act and send it to his desk to be signed into law expeditiously,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement.
The United States Senate is letting the Daylight Saving Bill die, when a vast Majority of the Country want it. Most people are demanding light in the evening, but ALL want not to change their clocks anymore. TAKE A VOTE! As stated in The New York Post, “Lawmakers in Washington… pic.twitter.com/TLKojYn23I
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) October 26, 2026
Cotton has helped thwart Trump’s wishes by blocking the bill, drawing the president’s ire. Trump in early October publicly gave out Cotton’s cellphone number in a dramatic attempt to pressure the senator to change his mind.
“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton responded on X. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
Surveys have repeatedly shown that Americans don’t like the current clock changes, with lawmakers and physicians blaming the regular time shifts for drowsiness, inconveniences and even risks to health.
Just 12 percent of Americans favored the current system as of October 2025, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll.
But there’s little consensus on what to adopt instead. Fifty-six percent of Americans said they would prefer year-round daylight saving time, with more light in the evening and less in the morning, while 42 percent wanted year-round standard time, with more light in the morning and less at night, the AP-NORC poll found.
Hawaii and most of Arizona have opted out of daylight saving time and remain on year-round standard time, meaning that they would not be affected by the passage of the Sunshine Protection Act.
Trump has portrayed the bill as a simple fix to a complicated problem.
“Most people are demanding light in the evening, but ALL want not to change their clocks anymore,” the president wrote on Truth Social last week.
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