As the shutdown battle enters its second week, the tide has shifted in Democrats’ favor — at least for now.
Early polls show voters are more likely to blame President Trump and the Republicans for the long stalemate. The president and his allies in Congress are publicly arguing over compensation for furloughed workers. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sends mixed messages whether military salaries should be protected. And clear cracks are emerging among the Republicans Opposition to expanding ObamaCare subsidies.
The combination has put Republican leaders on the defensive, even as they blame Democrats for the long standoff. And the developments have bolstered Democrats’ confidence that they will be able to maintain their united front, both in opposing Republicans’ short-term spending bill and in calling for an extension of the ObamaCare tax credits, which remains the issue at the heart of the standoff.
“The Democrats have been consistent. Our position remains the same, we’ve been saying it for months,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in the chamber on Wednesday. “Republicans are shutting down the government because they refuse to address the crisis in America’s healthcare system.”
A compact time later, Schumer joined 43 other Senate Democrats in rejecting the Republicans’ continuing resolution (CR). The The tally of 54 to 45 fell compact of the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster, marking the sixth time the bill has failed in the upper house.
Two Democrats and one independent crossed the aisle to support the bill. But all three of those senators — John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats — have supported the bill in the last five rounds of voting. The lack of recent Democrats defecting has robbed GOP leaders of any momentum they had hoped for with their strategy of pushing legislation through almost every day so far during the shutdown.
Meanwhile, House Democrats are taking major steps to highlight Johnson’s decision to cancel all House votes since two days before the shutdown began.
“Republicans like to advocate for more work requirements for poor people — people on SNAP, people on Medicaid,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “Well, I have an idea. Let’s put a work requirement on the Republicans to show up before Congress and do your damn job.”
Republican leaders are as confident as Democrats that they will win the fight. They haven’t budged from their position of refusing to negotiate health care — or anything else — until Democrats facilitate reopen the government.
“The House is done. The ball is now in the Senate’s court,” Johnson said during a news conference Wednesday. “It does us no good to be here and hesitate on show votes.”
“I know this story is getting venerable. They’re trying to find recent angles, but it’s the same thing [thing] – The conversation will happen when we open the government,” reiterated Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), adding that nothing has changed.
But there have been some changes in recent days, and virtually all of them suggest that Democrats have the upper hand, at least temporarily.
Public polls, although early, have consistently shown that voters blame Republicans more for the stalemate than Democrats.
A YouGov poll A poll conducted in the early days of the shutdown found that 45 percent of voters blamed Trump and Republicans, while 36 percent blamed Democrats.
A recent one CBS poll The report released this week also found the gap is 9 percentage points: 39 percent of respondents blame Trump and Republicans, while 30 percent blame Democrats. Other polls have given Democrats a similar lead.
Republicans also face challenges related to Trump Threatening not to make additional payment to furloughed federal employees. Such compensation has been common in closures in the past, and Trump signed a law in 2019 that appeared to codify the trend. But the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) this week expressed recent doubts about the automatic nature of the payments and said the government had no legal obligation to provide them – a message Trump reinforced from the White House.
The news sparked a backlash from a number of Republicans in Congress, who quickly backed off and advocated for the back pay.
“It’s not the president’s fault,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Tuesday. “I mean, his opinion is critical, but Congress has to provide the money.
“Read the Constitution.”
As Democrats have narrowed, Trump and others have signaled they may adjust their stance.
Although officials said last week that layoffs were “imminent” and Trump suggested over the weekend that they had already begun, such job cuts have not yet borne fruit.
And Trump appeared to hedge against the OMB memo, saying Tuesday: “By and large, we’re going to take care of our people.”
The dispute over military pay is also a headache for GOP leaders. Johnson suggested Tuesday that he might call the House of Representatives back to Washington to vote on a standalone bill aimed at ensuring military members don’t miss paychecks for the shutdown. The first of these is due on October 15th.
“I’m definitely open to that. We’ve done that in the past,” he said. “We want to make sure our troops are paid.”
But on Wednesday, the speaker walked that back and said that if Democrats want the troops paid, they should support the Republicans’ CR.
“Hakeem Jeffries and the House Democrats are clamoring to come back here and vote again because some of them want to go on record saying they support paying the troops,” he said. “We already had this vote – it’s called CR.”
Trump was asked Wednesday afternoon whether he would urge Congress to pass a standalone bill ensuring troops are paid during the shutdown. The president expressed his support but suggested he was in no hurry.
“Yes, that will probably happen. We don’t have to worry about it yet. That’s a long time from now,” Trump said. “Do you know what a week is to me? An eternity. … Our military is always taken care of.”
Republicans are also sending mixed messages in the health care debate.
Conservatives strongly oppose the expansion of the Affordable Care Act’s expanded subsidies, which is at the center of the shutdown debate, and GOP leaders say they won’t negotiate the issue until after the government reopens. But some frontline Republican lawmakers facing tough reelection battles are pushing for a one-year extension of those tax credits, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a close Trump ally, is also urging Republican leaders to urgently address the issue.
“The problems with subsidies are real,” Greene said NewsNation said Tuesday. “It’s not something that anyone can say is made up.”
White House officials insisted that lawmakers needed to reopen the government so discussions about health care could take place.
But Trump briefly muddied that message on Monday when he appeared to open the door to talks with Democrats on health care. He later clarified on social media that he did these conversations after the government reopens.
“I’m happy to work with the Democrats on their failed healthcare policies or other issues, but first they must allow our government to reopen,” he posted on Truth Social.
A source close to the White House acknowledged that if the shutdown drags on, concerns about the economy could prompt Trump to strike a deal. But the same source argued that those outside the Beltway should feel the pain of the closure and that any issues with air traffic controller shortages or missed military payments could backfire on Democrats.
