Let the government shutdown blame games begin

Democrats are entering the government shutdown blaming their rivals for rising health care costs. Republicans are countering by leaning into culture wars and attacking Democrats for pausing paychecks.

The partisan salvos crescendoed into Wednesday as each side prepared to answer for shutting down federal government operations after reaching a stalemate over a short-term funding patch.

Democratic and Republican leaders accused each other of operating in bad faith. The parties’ major campaign arms readied a barrage of attacks to hit airwaves and social media feeds across battlegrounds. And congressional candidates rushed to pin blame on the opposition — all moves that portend the battles to come next year when they tangle for control of the House.

Democrats believe they’re starting off the shutdown with the upper hand, pointing to polling that shows they have an advantage with voters concerned about health care. A string of surveys, including a Morning Consult poll shared first with POLITICO, reveal more voters are poised to blame Republicans than Democrats for the funding lapse — though swaths of Americans say both parties share responsibility. Independents across those surveys more readily point fingers at the GOP governing trifecta.

“Democrats have an advantage: It's a persuasive issue, it's a trust issue. And people care about it,” Brad Woodhouse, who runs a progressive health care group advising members of Congress, said of health care costs.

But Republicans aren’t ceding any ground as they, too, gear up for a shutdown-era feud.

The GOP already sees cracks forming across the aisle, prompting its House campaign arm to launch a digital ad across 42 competitive districts slamming Democrats over delayed paychecks for military members and other federal workers and accusing the party of “grinding America to a halt” to give undocumented immigrants “free health care.” The party's Senate campaign committee is yoking Democratic candidates in key races to what they’re referring to as Senate Minority Leader Chuck “Schumer’s shutdown.”

“If you want to talk about how to hold down people's health care premiums I’m all for that. If you want to talk about how to protect rural hospitals, I'm here for that. But I don't understand what shutting down the government has to do with that. I don't get why the two things are linked,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.

He was echoing Republicans who have blasted Democrats for attaaching health care negotiations to government funding, accusing them of holding the federal workforce “hostage” over an issue Senate Majority Leader John Thune and several rank-and-file GOP senators said they were willing to engage in separate talks on. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that roughly 750,000 employees could be furloughed each day of the shutdown.

“The people who will be hurt the most are the people that they say they want to help. It’s going to be working people,” Hawley added. “I just think that's kind of crazy."

Congressional Democrats’ refusal to support a stopgap funding measure without extending expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies marks a stark role reversal for the normally risk-averse party that typically abhors government shutdowns. And it represents a strategy shift for Schumer, who infuriated fellow Democrats when he sided with Republicans during the last funding fight in March.

Now his party is confident it’s returning to what’s historically been one of its winning issues by emphasizing health care. Democrats are armed with polling that shows opposition to the health care cuts in Republicans’ megalaw and are backed by the same advocacy groups that railed against Schumer after his spring shutdown cave. They’re also supported by surveys that show broad support for extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire by year’s end.

Democrats have discussed framing their message around health care for months, seizing on the expiring subsidies as another opportunity to hammer Republicans over rising costs and to freshen their attacks against the megalaw passed in July. The party’s House and Senate campaign arms began running digital ads ahead of the shutdown, accusing vulnerable Republican lawmakers of voting to raise health care costs and “standing in the way of affordable health care — on purpose.”

House Majority Forward is continuing its $3 million ad campaign targeting 10 vulnerable Republicans over tariffs and the shutdown until at least the end of next week, according to the group.

The minority party's bullishness is owed to millions of Americans likely being hit with higher health care premiums, should subsidies expire at year’s end without congressional action — another strain on the health care system on top of looming Medicaid cuts that providers warn threaten access nationwide. Even President Donald Trump’s top pollster has cautioned those cuts could harm battleground Republicans in the midterms.

But there are some warning signs for Democrats.

In a New York Times/Siena survey released Tuesday, nearly two-thirds of voters, including 59 percent of independents, said Democrats should not shut down the government if their demands are not met — a stat Thune’s aides and Republican campaign arms circulated online in the hours leading up to the shutdown.

And some Democrats are breaking rank: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), one of the three members of the Democratic caucus who voted with Republicans on Tuesday, had cautioned his colleagues ahead of the vote that Democrats “run the risk of not getting any of those kinds of changes to health care” if the government shuts down.

“There’s no such thing as a totally risk-less strategy,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a brief interview Monday night. “But this strategy is the right one. It's the right thing to do morally, ethically and legally."

Republicans — sensing they’ll be vulnerable on an issue central to many voters determining the makeup of the House next year — are trying to redirect attention to a culture-war fight, arguing Democrats are shutting down the government to fund free health care for undocumented immigrants and suggesting Schumer is acting out of self interest to avoid a primary challenge in 2028.

“Democrats are fighting for free health care for illegal aliens. And at the end of the day, that's not even what they're fighting for. What they're really fighting for is their left wing base that hates Donald Trump,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose push to defund President Barack Obama’s signature health care law in 2013 propelled a shutdown, told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday night.

Trump amplified Republicans’ immigration message in a vulgar, AI-generated video mocking Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that he posted after a meeting Monday with congressional leaders from both parties.

The video contains an inaccurate characterization of how the programs operate: undocumented immigrants are largely prohibited from federal health care assistance.

Republicans are also highlighting the shutdown’s impacts — like cutting funding for Head Start programs — in Democratically-controlled swing areas. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a digital ad Wednesday hitting Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who voted against the plan to avert a government closure Tuesday, over how the shutdown will affect military families and veterans who may see delays in getting their paychecks and benefits. The NRSC also plans to blast out the ad to voters in a text campaign.

Ossoff is running for reelection in one of the Senate’s few tossup seats next year.

Georgia Democrats, however, are already blaming Trump for losing health care access. In Georgia and Virginia, several rural health care clinics recently announced closures explicitly tied to Medicaid changes under the megalaw officially called the One Big Beautiful law. And if the Affordable Care Act tax credits expire, 750,000 people across the Peach State could lose access to health insurance by 2034, according to KFF.

Seth Clark, a Georgia Democrat and Macon mayor pro tempore, dismissed attacks on Ossoff as ineffective, saying he anticipates Georgians will blame the party in charge for the shutdown as they see government services shutter.

“I definitely don't think a 30-second spot with a scary voice is going to be the one who pins that tail on the donkey,” Clark said. “It's who called for negotiations and who walked away.”