The government shutdown has stretched into its 17th day and it appears no end is in sight. The Senate on Thursday failed to pass a spending bill for the 10th time due to Democratic opposition.
The weeks-long stalemate will last until at least Monday, with the Senate adjourning for the weekend on Thursday evening.
Congressional Republicans, President Donald Trump and his administration officials have branded the shutdown as a “Democrat shutdown,” with signage on federal agency websites blaming the left and videos playing at airports claiming that longer security lines are due to the Democrats’ refusal to pass the funding bill.
Democrats, however, say it’s an avoidable shutdown because Republicans hold the “trifecta,” with a Republican president and GOP majorities in either chamber of Congress. They refuse to give up their demand of permanently extending COVID-era tax subsidies in the Affordable Care Act and say Republican leaders would inflict significant harm by hiking up costs for millions of Americans’ health care coverage.
So, with federal workers feeling the effects of going without a paycheck and Washington continuing to be deadlocked, the question has loomed — who is to blame?
According to a new survey, released Thursday by The Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Americans tend to evenly distribute responsibility among the parties.
The survey found that 58% of respondents blame congressional Republicans and Trump for the shutdown. Similarly, 54% of survey respondents say congressional Democrats are to blame for the shutdown.
About 8 in 10 Democrats place the responsibility on congressional Republicans and the president while nearly the same amount, 7 in 10, Republican respondents say it’s congressional Democrats to blame.
The survey noted that past government shutdowns have been viewed as partisan issues. During the last shutdown, which occurred from late 2018 to early 2019 under Trump’s first term, Democrats were more inclined to blame Trump and Republicans in Congress while GOP voters blamed Democrats.
While the shutdown is centered around the health care tax subsidies, many respondents in the survey are uninformed about what the fight is all about.
Overall, 43% of respondents said they either strongly or somewhat favor the government extending the health care subsidies, and just 12% said they either strongly or somewhat oppose the extension. And 42% of survey respondents said they neither favor nor oppose the subsidy extension, proving they do not have an opinion about the shutdown’s biggest sticking point in Congress.
The public doesn’t hold either party in high regard. Just 32% of respondents view the Democratic Party favorably and 40% view the Republican Party favorably, the poll found.
The AP-NORC survey was conducted Oct. 9-13 among 1,289 adults and has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.
