Riding high after Tuesday night’s elections that gave Democrats wins up and down the ballot, progressive senators are urging their more centrist colleagues not to capitulate to Republicans over growing anxieties to end the nation’s longest-ever government shutdown.
Those like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a leadership member, made the case that victories across the country boost the party’s leverage in its demand to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies in exchange for reopening the government.
“It would be very strange for the American people to have weighed in, in support of Democrats standing up and fighting for them, and within days for us to surrender without having achieved any of the things that we’ve been fighting for,” Murphy said.
Senate Democrats are facing increased division among their ranks to cut a deal with Republicans to end what’s become a 36-day shutdown. Only three Democratic Caucus members, Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Angus King (I-ME), have publicly broken rank by supporting a “clean” GOP funding bill. But as many as a dozen are reportedly prepared to strike an agreement.
Democrats are holding firm in that anything short of a guaranteed outcome would be insufficient, such as a promise for a vote on Obamacare insurance credits that are at the center of the shutdown, which could ultimately fail.
“If they cave now and go forward with a meaningless vote, I think it will be a horrible policy decision, and I think politically, it will be devastating to the Democrats,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who caucuses with Democrats. “They’re going to come into the 2026 election. Some of you may have heard the expression, when we fight, we win. You ever heard that? Well, when you cave, you lose.”
Rank-and-file Democrats who’ve been involved in informal and behind-the-scenes talks with their Republican counterparts said negotiations remained ongoing to find a shutdown off-ramp that included stopgap funding paired with longer-term budget bills.
Democrats’ Tuesday election victories stretched from coast to coast, including victories for governor in New Jersey and Virginia; retaining Democratic state Supreme Court justices in battleground Pennsylvania; defeating a Maine ballot measure for voting ID requirements; approving California’s Prop 50 for redistricting; and gains in state legislatures.
Also buoying Democrats’ posture that they stay the course on the shutdown was President Donald Trump’s post-election analysis that voters punished the GOP for it at the ballot box.
Trump conceded during public remarks Wednesday morning, as he hosted Republican senators at the White House for breakfast, that the election outcome was not “good for Republicans.” Citing unnamed pollsters, Trump said, “The shutdown was a bigger factor, negative, for the Republicans.”
HOW THE ‘SCHUMER SHUTDOWN’ BACKFIRED ON GOP, DELIVERING HUGE NIGHT FOR DEMOCRATS
“I’m not sure it was good for anybody,” the president said. “But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot, and we’re going to talk about that.”
He proceeded to tell the GOP lawmakers it was time to end the shutdown by nuking the Senate’s long-standing 60-vote filibuster so they could pass legislation with a simple majority, a move that Republican leaders have steadfastly rejected.
Christian Datoc contributed to this report.
