Once thought doomed, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department has survived the Senate and now will take the helm as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was confirmed early Saturday morning as part of a mad blitz by lawmakers to wrap up their work and jet from Washington, D.C. Now, he’ll officially replace Pam Bondi as attorney general.

Blanche, who is Trump’s former personal lawyer, nearly saw his confirmation hopes go up in smoke as Republicans struggled to swallow his role in rolling out the nearly $2 billion anti-weaponization and sweeping IRS audit immunity for the president and his family.

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However, a last-minute ally emerged: Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who announced on Friday that he would back Blanche’s confirmation after spending days keeping tight-lipped on his decision.

Though he was concerned about weaponization at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and just how binding an agreement to nix the anti-weaponization fund and limit Trump’s audit immunity would be, he argued that having a Senate-confirmed attorney general was a better option than a placeholder.

“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general, who may not run the department effectively under President Trump.”

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Still, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined all Senate Democrats to oppose Blanche’s confirmation.

Murkowski announced her opposition hours before Cassidy’s lifeline. She contended that despite Blanche’s trek to Alaska and numerous meetings with him, she could not support him to be the next attorney general.

She was worried about his connection to the anti-weaponization fund, a weaponized Justice Department, Blanche’s role in the Epstein Files release, and the uncertain future of the fund, which several Republicans have raised concerns about over whether taxpayer dollars would flow to rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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“The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” Murkowski said. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”

Collins raised similar concerns earlier in the week, and was the first Republican out of the gate to cast doubt on Blanche’s chances of confirmation.

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“While I believe Mr. Blanche is a capable lawyer, the Department of Justice has become increasingly political,” Collins said. “Mr. Blanche has taken several actions that have further eroded the Department’s independence, and that is the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation.”

A state judge Thursday rejected a challenge to how California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office summarized a strict new voter ID measure on November ballots — ruling that the summary language accurately describes the measure’s effects were it to pass.

Another judge dealt the backers of the measure a second loss by tentatively finding that their description of the measure, submitted for the official state voter’s guide, was misleading. They had claimed that Proposition 39 would make voting easier.

In the first case, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jennifer K. Rockwell ruled that the label, title and summary of the certified ballot measure accurately describe Proposition 39 as a measure that “prohibits citizens from voting” — language the measure’s backers specifically objected to — unless they provide a government-issued ID.

According to minutes from a Thursday hearing on the matter, Rockwell concluded that, to the extent the measure’s backers object to that language, they are objecting to “the provisions of the measure itself.”

Rockwell rejected the argument put forth by the measure’s backers that it would not prevent people without ID from voting, only their votes from being counted — a distinction the judge found lacking.

Both parties had asked the court to move quickly ahead of printing deadlines for November ballots.

The attorney general’s office is responsible for preparing titles and summaries for ballot measures, and is not required by law to use the same language as a measure’s proponents when gathering the necessary voter signatures to place the measure on the ballot.

Bonta’s office had argued in court that his office applied the same standard of review to the voter ID measure as every other ballot measure that has come before his office.

Bonta praised Rockwell’s decision on social media Thursday, writing that it “confirms what we have said from the start: the ballot materials at issue — the ballot title and summary and ballot label — give a true and impartial statement of Proposition 39’s chief purpose and points.”

“My office followed the law and fulfilled its duty to provide California voters with clear, accessible, and accurate information,” he wrote. “We’re pleased that the court agreed with us.”

California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), the chief backer of the court challenge and chairman of the group Reform California, responded to the ruling with a video post to social media, writing that it was “expected” but nonetheless “disappointing.”

DeMaio accused Bonta of trying to “manipulate the vote” with “rigged” language, and Rockwell of being a “liberal judge” who had unsurprisingly decided that Bonta “gets to do corruptly what he wants to do.”

“It’s pissing me off,” DeMaio said in his video post.

DeMaio predicted that Proposition 39 will still pass, but that it will take “all of us spreading the word that the attorney general has tried to manipulate the title on the ballot measure.”

Voter ID requirements are being pushed by Republicans across the country — from President Trump down — as necessary to prevent voter fraud, including by noncitizens, despite elections experts saying that such fraud is exceedingly rare and that there is no evidence that it exists in volumes large enough to swing elections.

Democrats, including in California, have argued that states already have robust measures to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots, including through existing security measures such as signature verification. They said stricter voter ID requirements would lead to eligible voters without ready access to documents being denied access to voting — including poorer, elderly and rural voters and married women who have changed their names.

A majority of California voters back stricter voter ID requirements, according to recent polls.

The Trump administration has been pressing for new voter ID requirements nationwide, including in Congress, without success.

Passage of Proposition 39 in liberal California would represent a massive win for the administration and a setback for California’s Democratic leaders. It would require substantial reforms to how the state accepts ballots both in person and through the mail — the latter being the preferred option for the vast majority of voters in recent California elections.

Backers of Proposition 39 also took a hit in a separate court proceeding Thursday, where another judge — siding with top Democratic lawmakers — issued a tentative finding that the measure’s backers were misleading voters by claiming in voter guide language that the measure would make voting easier in the state were it to pass.

“It is hard to conceive how it would be ‘easy’ or ‘easier’ to vote if a voter has to take the extra step of either bringing government-issued identification when voting in person or search for their government-issued identification and supply the last four digits if they vote by mail,” wrote Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang.

The voter guide language will need to change as a result.

California leaders who brought the challenge — including State Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Goleta) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) — praised the decision.

“Prop 39 is a MAGA-backed power grab by Donald Trump’s closest allies,” Rivas said in a statement. “As today’s ruling underscores, Prop 39 isn’t about election security or fair elections — the real goal of the MAGA activists who wrote Prop 39 is to make it harder for Californians to vote.”

DeMaio denounced the decision, accusing Chang of having “sided with the politicians” in California to “strike legitimate arguments on why Voter ID is needed to improve election integrity.”

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is facing pushback online over a resurfaced clip where he says he “hates” arguably the most treasured location in the state.

In the documentary clip from 2020, resurfaced by The Midwesterner on Friday, El-Sayed can be seen walking through Michigan’s Mackinac Island during his failed run for governor.

“I hate Mackinac so much,” El-Sayed says about the state’s most recognizable vacation spots which sits on an island in Lake Huron between Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsula’s.

“It’s funny cause, like, if we win, this is gonna be, like, the summer home,” El-Sayed added, referencing the governor’s summer residence on the island.

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“I’m just gonna be like every time I’ve ever come here, I’ve hated it. Why am I here.”

The clip went viral on social media on Thursday with conservatives blasting El-Sayed for looking down on the quaint village town.

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“The rising stars of the Democrat Party loathe America and seek to destroy it,” Federalist Editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway posted on X. “And unlike their spiritual forebears, they see less of a reason to hide it for political gain. “

“I got engaged on this island,” Outkick founder Clay Travis posted on X. It’s an awesome place. Honestly, I don’t understand how anyone could hate northern Michigan in summer, absolutely beautiful, most underrated spot in the country.”

“Wow hating Mackinac!” former Trump adviser Steve Cortes posted on X. “A place that is so iconic to Michigan, to America. Abdul has a dark heart.”

“Abdul el-Sayed is a repellent terror-loving anti-Semite–and that’s not even the worst thing about him,” Commentary Magazine editor John Podhoretz posted on X. “He hates Mackinac Island, one of the most wonderful places on earth. A person who hates Mackinac Island has had his soul ripped from his body.”

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“He would rather summer at his property in Dubai ,” National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesperson Sarah Gallagher posted on X.

“Bro has no soul,” On Brand Strategies communications associate Carly Moran posted on X. “It’s literally Heaven on Earth. “

“Abdul speaks fondly of his Egyptian summers yet he shows utter disdain for one of Michigan’s most beautiful summer destinations,” former Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon told Fox News Digital. “He wants his history to be respected but belittles Michigander’s favorite memories. He doesn’t respect us and therefore he cannot represent us.”

“Abdul El-Sayed hot mic: ‘I hate Mackinac so much,’” conservative influencer account End Wokeness posted on X. “This is the most American place in MI.”

Some, including journalist Brad LaPlante, defended El-Sayed’s comments as being taken “out of context.”

“El-Sayed was talking about the Mackinac Policy Conference, an annual gathering of policy pros and insiders that he argues brings together well-connected and powerful people and shuts most voters out of politics,” LaPlante wrote.

Others weren’t so sure, including Michigan Young Republicans Board Member James Asher who responded in a post on X, “Brad, are you dizzy from the way you’re spinning this?”

Mackinac Island is beloved in large part because it has retained a character increasingly rare in American tourist destinations. Motor vehicles have been largely prohibited since the 1890s, leaving visitors to travel by foot, bicycle or the island’s famous horse-drawn carriages.

The island is littered with Victorian homes, historic hotels, waterfront streets, natural scenery and celebrated fudge shops which draw more than a million visitors from around the world each summer, while landmarks such as the Grand Hotel and Fort Mackinac have helped make the island an enduring symbol of Michigan history and culture.

Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

El-Sayed responded to the post from End Wokeness on Friday afternoon saying, “Not sure about ‘End Wokeness,’ but I don’t think the most ‘American place in MI’ can be a place that…bans cars.”