The federal government shutdown is now the second-longest in history. We’re on Day 21, and if it lingers into early November, Congress could surpass the current record of 35 days – from, as it happens, the first Trump administration.
Who knows if we’ll get there. There is a premium in these debates on appearing resolute. That means neither side telegraphs that it might fold – right up until the moment one does.
But there are also a number of dynamics pushing us toward an especially prolonged shutdown right now.
And at the top of that list is the blame game, where we’re in uncharted territory.
But plainly: History suggests it’s Democrats who would eventually back down. But they seem to have relatively little reason to do so right now.
Generally speaking, it’s the side that made extraneous policy demands that loses politically in shutdowns. In this case, that’s the Democrats, who are demanding an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies. People overwhelmingly say they don’t like using shutdowns as leverage – by massive margins, in fact.
But public opinion on this shutdown hasn’t gone that way.
President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that Democrats were “getting killed in the polls.”
“The public understands what they’re doing; they’re doing the wrong thing,” Trump added.
This does not appear at all accurate.
In fact, every quality public poll has shown Trump and Republicans continue to shoulder more blame than Democrats.
In a Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted October 15-20, Americans blamed congressional Republicans more than Democrats, 50%-43%.
The gap was larger in a CNBC poll conducted October 8-12. It showed Americans blamed Trump and the Republicans over Democrats, 53%-37%. (Independents blamed Trump by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, 58%-21%.)
Before the shutdown started, polls showed the blame game favoring Democrats by between 7 and 11 points. Polling since it started has shown it favoring Democrats by between 7and 17 points.
The other longest shutdowns on record were in 1995-96 (21 days) and 2018-19 (35 days), both of which involved Republicans making the policy demand.
In both cases, the blame game was against the GOP from the start and seemed to get worse as things dragged on.
In 1995-96, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll before the shutdown showed people were prepared to blame Republicans by 11 points. Polling after the shutdown began showed the GOP getting blamed by more than 20 points.
In 2018-19, pre-shutdown polling showed Americans were predisposed to blame Trump and the Republicans by 14-15 points. Most quality polls after it began showed Americans blaming the GOP by 20 or more points.
In both cases, the GOP was arguably fighting a losing battle before things even got started, and then it became clear they weren’t winning either politically or policy-wise. So they gave up.
That’s been flipped on its head now.
A big reason appears to be that what Democrats are demanding is actually popular – unlike, for instance, the GOP’s demand of building Trump’s border wall in 2018-2019. The new Reuters-Ipsos poll shows 72% of Americans and even 51% of Republicans want health care subsidies to be extended. Those numbers have also been consistent.
The question is whether Americans believe the policy goal that they very much want is worth continuing the shutdown.
That could be a tougher ask, especially as some key impacts of the shutdown set in. Federal employees will miss their first full paycheck later this week, for example. Small business loans will be held up. Aid to low-income Americans like food stamps could soon be halted.
But the looming impacts cut both ways. November 1 is as an especially important deadline for Democrats’ policy demand. It’s when open enrollment for the Obamacare plans begins.
At that point, many Americans would begin to see the significantly higher premiums caused by letting the subsidies lapse – in most cases doubling or close to doublingaccording to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization.
There is a school of thought that Democrats could give up at that point, believing they had forced Republicans to own the premium hikes and that they had cast a spotlight on the fact that the GOP stood in the way of renewing them.
But if you’re a Democrat and you’re looking at these polls, you have to be intrigued by the possibility of holding out. What if Republicans really get scared about owning those premium hikes – like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and even Trump’s own pollster have warned them – and suddenly feel compelled to come to the table?
Democrats haven’t had many wins since the November election, and this situation presents at least the possibility of a very significant one.
Perhaps as significantly, how would a Democratic base that has sharply criticized their party’s leaders for their lack of fight react to their side throwing in the towel when it looked like they were on the winning side of the issue?
Plenty will play out over the next 10 days. But the plot is significantly thicker than in past shutdowns.
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