Who’s winning the government shutdown?

WASHINGTON—As the government shutdown reached its 29th day on Wednesday with no sign of stopping, it was poised to rival the longest on record—a 35-day shutdown under the first Trump administration.

But on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have dug in.

“We haven’t asked them to sell a kidney,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told me. “We just asked them, no strings attached, to open up the government. I’ve voted 13 times to open it up. I don’t know what more I can do.”

Senate Democrats say they’re waiting for an indication that President Donald Trump is open to negotiating healthcare subsidies. Some Republicans, meanwhile, have proposed stopgap measures to fund food programs and pay military members and air traffic controllers. Others appear willing to wait out the recalcitrant Democrats in a war of attrition.

“The government needs to be open. We just need Democrats to actually take it up and vote with us,” Vice President J.D. Vance told reporters after a lunch with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, discussing the 60-vote threshold. “We’ve got three moderate Democrats, to their credit, who have voted to reopen the government. We just need five more reasonable Democrats to do what the American people want: to open up the government.”

Senate Democrats have consistently voted against a House-passed continuing resolution that would fund the government through Nov. 21. The resolution has no policy riders attached, but Democrats argue that Congress should add just one: a renewal of COVID-19 subsidies for the Affordable Care Act that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. During the shutdown, senators have said that no backroom discussions are taking place.

Meanwhile, federal employees who have not been furloughed are working without paychecks. The largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees, urged Democrats in a public letter this week to end the shutdown and come to some agreement. And the Agriculture Department announced it would have no more money to run the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“We can open the government today,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told me, adding that Democrats are using low-income families for political gain. “It’s exceedingly frustrating to me that we’re talking about this, and then my Democratic colleagues are talking about SNAP beneficiaries and families being leveraged.”

Lankford has co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to keep SNAP cards and renewals open for the remainder of the shutdown. It’s a stopgap measure called a “rifle-shot bill”—so named because they target a specific program—and one of several that Republican lawmakers have proposed. (Democratic senators proposed their own SNAP funding bill on Wednesday.) Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has a bill on the floor to pay air traffic control operators. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, added one to pay the military.

But passing such bills could relieve some pressure on Democrats. So far, polling has found that roughly equal ratios of partisan voters blame the opposite party for the shutdown. George Washington University politics professor Casey Burgat said that, until public opinion shifts, neither party has an incentive to cave. But passing the rifle-shot bills could prolong the détente.

“It would change the entire incentive structure for funding bills in general and then for shutdown politics,” Burgat said. “If you start piecemealing out certain populations that are effectively exempt from this, then you remove the huge incentive structure to create a grand bargain. You’re removing a lot of those pain points that have historically provided those incentives for members across the aisle to finally come to some sort of deal.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on Wednesday, “There’s not a high level of interest in doing carve-outs or so-called rifle shots. I think most people recognize the way to get out of this mess is to vote to open up the government.”

On the Democrat side, lawmakers argue that Republicans need to come to a negotiating table. While Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Angus King, I-Maine, have voted in favor of the continuing resolution, the rest of the conference is in lockstep to block it until they get a promise to extend ACA subsidies. And a simple verbal agreement will not do.

“The Republicans actually have to come and talk to us about dealing with healthcare,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told me. “So if the Republicans want to end this, they need to sit down and negotiate and make sure that Americans have affordable healthcare in this country.”

Both parties are in tight spots, according to Burgat. On the one hand, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is fulfilling a hefty promise by passing a clean continuing resolution without extra policy riders. On the other, Democrats need to appeal to their base, and the best tool for a minority party is obstruction.

“This is a political moment where a lot of their voters want to see them standing up to Trump and Republicans within Congress,” Burgat said. “This is one of the few ways they can do it on a policy that they want to support.”

It’s a risky play. Roughly 42% of Americans have no opinion on ACA subsidies, according to an AP-NORC poll released Oct. 16. Burgat said Democrats are banking on the assumption that voters will blame the party in the majority for the shutdown rather than them. While that might score a political win, “it also comes at a cost to very real people, the same people they are trying to convince that they’re here to represent and speak for,” he said.

And the longer the shutdown drags on, the more voters will pay attention when food benefits run dry or airports suffer lengthy delays. While senators are focused on internal politics, voters could become the collateral damage.

“This is why I get why people hate Washington,” Burgat said.

After the Senate lunch on Tuesday, Vance confirmed that the 1.3 million active-duty members of the military will get paid on Friday. Earlier this month, the Pentagon redirected $8 billion in unspent research and development funds to fill paychecks. It is unclear where the money for this week’s paychecks is coming from. But the Agriculture Department says it cannot use $5 billion in contingency funds to keep SNAP open, despite Democratic claims to the contrary.

“Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to pay everybody because we’ve been handed a very bad hand by the Democrats,” Vance said. “This is one of the reasons why you’ve seen some layoffs in the federal workforce.”

The House-passed continuing resolution only funds the government through Nov. 21. If the shutdown extends to that point, both chambers will be forced back to the drawing board.