The Shutdown End Game
(and it's 2026 implications)
We’re in the 16th day of the government shutdown. So, let’s step back and assess where things stand strategically as we move through week three .
Four Keys to A Smart Democratic
Shutdown Ending Strategy
#1: Recognize that Thune and the Republicans have miscalculated (badly).
Thune and the Republicans have made three mistakes as the shutdown scenario has unfolded.
They over-invested in the “clean CR” argument. Senators on both sides of the aisle have a tendency to lapse into Senate speak. “We just want a clean CR” (short for continuing resolution) is Senate speak. It would have been far more effective for Thune to say “We’re just asking for a few more weeks so we can continue negotiating these funding bills.”
They thought they could just wait around for Dems to fold. At the heart of Republican strategy was thinking all they needed to do was wait around for Democrats to fold like Schumer did back in March. They just need seven or eight Democrats to jump ship.
But we are 16 days and ten Senate votes in and the GOP still can’t find
the five more Democratic votes they need. Why? First, Dems are defending
a highly popular demand for action stopping people’s Affordable Care Act
premiums from rising dramatically come January.
And at least until now, the Republicans haven’t given potential Democratic defectors anything to hang their hat on. That may be changing because now Thune is starting to dangle a promised up and down vote on extending the health premiums.
They under-estimated the risk in a battle over health care benefits a significant portion of their base depends on. Democrats picked a fight over a very popular issue. Nearly eight in 10 Americans want Congress to renew the ACA subsidies. That includes 59% of Republicans.
That reality has made it hard for the GOP to generate outrage over the Dems tactics. And ironically, the timing of Trump’s Gaza breakthrough pushed the shutdown debate off center stage.
#2: See that Thune can’t make a believable deal without Johnson.
Here’s the first trick. Even if Thune chooses to come up with a credible offer in the Senate (and he’s not there yet), Dems would be fools to take it without a parallel House agreement.
Chances are, if they get a clean up and down vote in the House, Democrats can win. It would take nearly unanimous Democrats support and a just a handful of Republicans.
But for the proposal to make it to the House floor, Speaker Johnson would have to abandon the so-called Hastert rule. That’s the notion that the Speaker refuses to bring to the floor propositions not supported by a majority of House Republicans.
#3: See that Thune and Johnson can’t make a believable deal without Trump.
Given his iron grip on the Republican Congress (and his veto power), there’s no deal Democrats should accept without Trump being on board. Trump could intervene in one of two ways – by going along with a Thune /Johnson approach or just going around them and making a deal of his own.
Either way, no Trump, no resolution.
#4: Know Dems won’t get everything, but they have to get enough.
The GOP controls the House, the Senate and the White House. Dems know they won’t get everything. For example, an agreed upon benefits extension might be for a shorter period of time than they’d like and it may involve some restrictions they don’t favor. But they have to succeed enough to do two things.
First, convince their base that they finally know how to fight back. And second, start to convince working class voters they have both the will and skill to fight for what matters to them in their daily lives.
Two Keys to A Smart Dem
Post-Shutdown Strategy
We’re still more than a year out from the 2026 midterms. And the received wisdom is that, similar to earlier ones, this shutdown won’t have a strong electoral impact.
Intervening events will drive it from voters’ memories. And that may be true of the shutdown details.
But if Democrats play their cards right, the events of this October can serve as a launch pad for two critical 2026 storylines.
Democrats need to drive home a Republicans are undermining health care narrative.
Before the shutdown began, Trump and the Republicans were already underwater on the health care issue. This month is helping cement that perception. With disciplined messaging (not always a party strength), Democrats can advance a four-legged narrative about Republican efforts to undermine health care:
* They took millions of peoples’ access to Medicaid away to fund tax cuts
for billionaires.
* They’re letting Robert F. Kennedy ignore science, advance crackpot ideas,
and undermine access to lifesaving vaccines.
* They put the brakes on promising NIH-funded research on childhood
cancer and other diseases.
·* They had to be pulled kicking and screaming into stopping dramatic increases in peoples’ Affordable Care Act premiums.
Democrats need to stay focused on health care and affordability issues in the midterm elections.
Back in June of the 2024 election year, I wrote this:
Democrats “have correctly emphasized that a Trump victory in November could threaten the very foundations of our democracy. But for some audiences, including the most critical electoral ones, that broad theme is too far removed from peoples’ daily lives.
“Don’t keep the conversation up in the philosophical heights. Paint vivid portraits of what a Trump assault on democracy will mean in terms of peoples’ day-to-day lives – their family’s health care, their children’s education, their economic security, etc.”
It’s unfollowed advice that has worn well – and it applies with equal force to the 2026 midterms. As alarming as Trump 2.0 is turning out to be, we can’t win decisive victories next year with a one-note, anti-Trump “existential threat to democracy” message. That may work with the Democratic base.
But if we want to attract the support of working class swing voters, we need to advance strong policies on health care and affordability. And building on this October’s all-out defense of access to health care, we have to keep those issues at the center of Democratic campaign messaging right through next November.
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