ROOKE: Democrats’ Grip On Bargaining Power Dramatically Loosens As End Of Schumer Shutdown Looms
Outwardly, Democrats claim their resolve to keep the government shutdown has never been stronger. However, cracks are beginning to form within the party, signaling that the shutdown might end soon.
When Democrats initially voted against the Republican House-passed clean continuing resolution (CR), voters in large margins blamed Republicans. This is likely due to a lack of knowledge about how many votes it takes to pass a CR after the Democrats invoked a filibuster on the bill. Without a filibuster motion, Senate Republicans needed a simple majority to pass the CR with 100 senators, so 51 votes. However, now that Democrats have invoked the filibuster, Senate Republicans need 60 votes (three-fifths of the 100 senators) to invoke cloture and end debate, after which a simple majority is still required for final passage.
Republicans hold a slim 53-seat majority in the Senate, enough to pass the CR without a filibuster, but not enough to pass the motion. As it stands, Republicans need seven Democrats to cross the aisle to invoke cloture and end the debate.
Democrats used this sneaky trick, with help from the media running cover, to push the blame onto Republicans and President Donald Trump. Their argument was simple: Republicans control both chambers of Congress plus the White House; therefore, the shutdown rests solely on their shoulders. For a while, their strategy has worked. Polling in early October showed a majority of Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown. However, the longer the shutdown lasts, the worse it’s getting for Democrats.
🚨FETTERMAN on the continued shutdown “It’s Groundhog Day… that’s a great movie, but this is sh*tty.”
🎥: @_cadenolson pic.twitter.com/w2fVauWzpZ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 21, 2025
While polling shows the Congressional Republicans are still shouldering the majority of the blame, approval ratings for Trump and both parties highlight the need for Democrats to quit stalling and pass the CR.
The most recent Quinnipiac University poll, conducted October 16-20, showed 40 percent of registered voters approved of Trump’s job as president, slightly up from Quinnipiac’s September polling, when 38 percent said the same.
When asked about Republicans, 35 percent gave them positive marks for their job performance, while 59 percent disapproved of Congressional Republicans. Compared to that, just 26 percent of registered voters approved of Congressional Democrats, while 67 percent told the survey they disapproved. Both Democrats and Republicans are up from Quinnipiac’s July 16 poll, where voters gave Democrats a 19 percent approval rating and Republicans a 33 percent approval rating.
Democrats are reportedly talking among themselves about the need to end the stalemate. Former Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine claimed Tuesday that Capitol Hill Democrats have texted him that the shutdown will end soon.
“Even texting with people on Capitol Hill here on the Democratic side, they know that this cannot go on too much longer,” Turrentine said on “The Morning Meeting” show. “There’s no talk of, ‘Yeah, we’ll do this through Thanksgiving.’”
“They’re like, ‘Yeah, we know this is going to have to end pretty soon.’ Again, the question is: who blinks?” he added. “And I do continue to think that by the end of next week, that middle part of the Democratic Party is going to start talking about, ‘How do we get out of this?’”
And while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries insist that their members will not be voting to pass the CR until Republicans fill the clean CR with their demands, the list of Democrats crossing the aisle to join Republicans ticked up Thursday.
Initially, just two Democratic senators, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, had joined Republicans to pass the CR. On Thursday, two more Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both from Georgia, voted with Republicans to end the government shutdown. However, Republicans lost Cortez Masto on the last vote, with her rejoining the Democratic side to keep the government shutdown.
Republicans have 55 votes (53 Republican senators and 3 Democratic senators) in favor of opening the federal government. The party needs just five more votes to invoke cloture and end the debate, thus allowing a simple majority vote to end the shutdown.
And while Democrats continue to keep the government closed, regular Americans and essential federal workers are going without the assistance or pay they need. It seems for the time being, Democrats are fine using their pain as leverage in order to score political points.
AUTHOR
Mary Rooke
Commentary and Analysis Writer. Follow Mary Rooke on X: @MaryRooke
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