WASHINGTON — Utah voters were more likely to say that congressional Democrats were responsible for the record-long shutdown that ended earlier this month, but a substantial number of respondents said both parties are to blame, according to new polling.
More than one-third (35%) of registered Utah voters said Democrats were primarily responsible for the 43-day government shutdown that ended last week, followed closely by 34% of voters who said all parties share the blame, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted by Morning Consult. The all-inclusive number includes President Donald Trump, who 21% of voters separately said is at fault.
Only 7% said congressional Republicans were solely responsible. Another 3% said they didn’t know, the poll showed.
Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, said the polling shows Utahns see the recent government shutdown as a “shared failure.”
“This is a clear signal of the deep frustration voters have with current partisan politics and the lack of compromise and solutions at the national level,” he said.
Utah voters’ answers are different than those given by a national sample, as voters across the country were more likely to blame Trump for the shutdown rather than lawmakers. About 30% in the national poll say Trump is at fault compared to 29% who say congressional Democrats and just 10% who blame Republicans, the poll showed.
Six percent said they didn’t know.
When Trump is taken off the list, and voters are asked to assign blame to either congressional Republicans or Democrats, Utah voters were more likely to say that Democrats caused the shutdown (35%) compared to just 25% who said Republicans were primarily responsible, the poll showed. But 34% said both parties were equally at fault.
The polling reflects other national data that has shown Americans are consistently split on who to blame for the shutdown — putting party leaders on both the offensive and defensive in recent weeks as they worked toward reopening the government.
The survey was conducted during the last five days of the shutdown as a handful of Democratic senators worked with Republicans behind the scenes to craft a compromise bill to reopen the government. In the end, eight Democratic senators crossed party lines to advance the bill out of the Senate, paving the way for the shutdown to end. Six House Democrats voted to pass the spending resolution.
Despite sharing blame mostly along party lines, Utah voters’ perceptions of both parties fare much worse for Democrats.
A majority of Utah voters (63%) disapprove of Democrats’ performance in Congress with only 26% who say they either strongly approve or somewhat approve, according to the poll. Republicans have a more mixed review as 48% say they disapprove of their performance compared to 44% who said the opposite.
Democrats’ low polling numbers could be caused in part by the fact that a majority of Utah voters say they have been personally affected by the shutdown.
A quarter (25%) of Utahns say they personally experienced economic hardship during the shutdown due to delayed paychecks or other frozen funds, with another 41% saying they know someone who did, according to the poll. Only 36% of respondents say they don’t know anyone who was negatively affected.
The poll surveyed 607 registered voters in Utah between Nov. 8-12 with a margin of error of plus/minus 4 percentage points. The national survey contained answers from 1,745 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.