Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation on Thursday with Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer and Republican pollster, and Nate Silver, the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything” and the newsletter Silver Bulletin, to discuss the government shutdown — who’s up, who’s down and how it might end.
Frank Bruni: Kristen, Nate, happy second week of the federal shutdown. Beyond and above the particular agendas and tussles that attend this (or any other) shutdown is a larger concern: Each party hopes to come out of the standoff looking like the less rash, more responsible one. Each wants the other to get a larger portion of the blame. For now — and I fully realize that all of this is in flux — what does polling tell us about whether the shutdown is hurting Republicans or Democrats more? Which party is winning?
Nate Silver: So let me start this off with a slightly feisty opinion. I’m not sure that winning the shutdown is a thing that matters. And I’m not sure that polling tells us very much about it.
Kristen Soltis Anderson: I would first like to echo the sentiments of the West Virginia senator, Jim Justice, when he said, “This is not a game, really, of the Senate against the House or the Republicans against the Democrats. This is real live people who are depending upon us to do our jobs right.”
Voters, broadly, don’t seem to be decisively blaming one party more than the other, beyond what you might normally expect in terms of partisan response.
Silver: A plurality of voters blame President Trump and Republicans rather than Democrats. But the Democratic edge on this question seems to be narrowing.
Anderson: The freshest polling I’ve seen, from Reuters/Ipsos, shows 63 percent holding Trump responsible “at least a fair amount,” 67 percent saying the same for Republicans and 63 percent for Democrats.
Silver: Americans aren’t happy with anyone here. Just 27 percent approve of how congressional Democrats are handling the shutdown, according to a recent CBS/YouGov poll, versus 28 percent who approve of congressional Republicans and 32 percent of Trump. Many voters are aware that a shutdown is happening, but I don’t think they’re yet paying much attention to the details.
Anderson: The shutdown has not yet had a concrete, meaningful impact on voters’ day-to-day lives, and as a result, their responses to “who is to blame” are driven largely by their priors about who is usually to blame or which party they like more.
Bruni: The numbers, then, don’t tell any stark, meaningful or deeply consequential shutdown story. So let me ask you to use a different lens. You are both analysts as well as pollsters: Which party and which party leaders, to your ears, is telling the better story — crafting the better message — about what’s going on? And do you have any anecdotal sense about how that’s playing?
Silver: I don’t have any anecdotal sense, because normal people aren’t yet paying much attention. But the complication is that Democrats have two or maybe even three somewhat contradictory messages. Nominally, the shutdown is about health care, particularly extending Obamacare subsidies. But liberal commentators had a big debate over the shutdown beforehand in opinion articles. There was a consensus that they didn’t want to provide votes for the continuing resolution without extracting some concessions. But they weren’t in agreement as to why: health care in some cases, authoritarianism in others (and then I was on a lonely island advocating a tariff-focused shutdown).
Anderson: The challenge Republicans face is they are seen as “in charge” and have to point out that it is only because of the dreaded filibuster that we are in this situation. The good news for Republicans is that — unusually for government shutdowns! — their party is basically united, while it is Democrats who are more divided over what the right strategy is. This time, the government is not closed because Republicans have some holdouts and need to rely on Democrats to patch up the holes in their caucus.
Democrats fumbled this a bit in my view because they put the cart before the horse. Rather than saying, “We want X and we will use a shutdown as a tool to achieve it if necessary,” they started off with, “We want a shutdown to stand up to Trump,” and then worked backward on what the X was that they wanted to justify it.
Bruni: Both of you have observed that Democrats aren’t all on the same page and have altered their emphasis over time. But you’ve also noted that — your words, Nate — “normal people” aren’t paying close attention. So how many people are even aware of these Democratic bobbles and fine points? In a month’s time, will it all be eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind forgotten?
Silver: I don’t think the Democrats’ message about health care is really breaking through. If you look at Google search traffic, searches related to the shutdown are overwhelmingly higher than those for the Affordable Care Act. And in that CBS/YouGov poll, again, only 28 percent of Americans say the Democrats’ positions are “worth” a shutdown.
Anderson: The point is more that Democrats have not built up to this shutdown with a great messaging strategy that lets them drive home a consistent message people have heard before. If I were a congressional Republican, I’d just vote for a clean “Pay Our Government Employees” act or something similarly named every chance I got, to drive home that it is Democrats who are holding government “hostage,” to use the framing President Barack Obama used to use for Republicans when they held government closed to push for some other policy outcome they wanted.
Silver: I just find the whole thing strange, because this process is playing out almost entirely among political insiders, and then we’re trying to evaluate it based on polls of people who aren’t even in the target audience for that messaging. And if they were paying attention, I’m not sure that would be great for Democrats! For one thing, they might blame the Democrats more for the shutdown. Voters are probably defaulting to the (usually reliable) heuristic that Republicans are more obstructionist, but those opinions might change if people start to see more tangible consequences like missed paychecks for federal workers or longer lines for airport security.
Bruni: Kristen, Nate, let me push back just a bit, or play devil’s advocate, on your points about messaging strategy. I don’t think Democrats are the only ones spewing contradictions and behaving in befuddling ways. While you have the Senate majority leader, John Thune, and the House speaker, Mike Johnson, saying that the government must be reopened so it can perform its functions, you have Trump and Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, saying they want a government that performs many fewer functions, as I wrote earlier this week. What I’m hearing from the Trump administration is: “Yippee!!! Let’s gut the government! And maybe we won’t do back pay, too!” Isn’t that a problem for the party? How’s that bound to play?
Anderson: I agree that it would be very, very bad for the Republican message to get muddled with a “don’t threaten me with a good time” narrative that suggests they’re happy about this.
Bruni: I don’t understand the “would be bad.” Aren’t Trump and Vought projecting glee? Isn’t that already suggesting that they’re happy about this?
Anderson: To Nate’s wise point, I am not at all certain that persuadable voters at the moment are focused on what the director of the Office of Management and Budget is saying. And Trump says lots of things all the time.
Silver: And Trump’s approval ratings have not declined since the shutdown began, at least according to our tracking. That’s a bit unusual; most of the time, a shutdown (temporarily) hurts everyone’s numbers. Funnily enough, there has been a recent dip in Trump’s numbers, but it predates the shutdown. As best as we can tell, it actually followed the Jimmy Kimmel thing instead.
Bruni: I mean, honestly, do Trump’s approval ratings ever change all that much? They feel to me more baked-in than any president’s in the modern age. Between the greater, more entrenched partisanship of the moment and the way in which his outrageousness forced or led people to make up their minds and fix their opinions about him long ago, what would it take to move his numbers in a major way?
Anderson: His numbers do change, if not dramatically in the way we might have seen for past presidents. President Trump’s job approval has typically traded in a narrow band. But it has seen a slow erosion since January, and in my view that has been more driven by independent voters being understandably agitated that the cost of living doesn’t feel like it is getting better.
Silver: I agree they’re fairly baked in, but that’s also why this is low stakes. And it’s not like Democrats are really making all that tough an “ask” of Trump. They’re basically asking him to extend a tax credit that will lower the cost of health care. And Trump has signaled some amenability to that, because frankly, extending the subsidies would be a politically smart move. Tariffs would have represented a much bigger confrontation with what seem to be Trump’s core values.
Bruni: “This is low stakes” — is that true no matter how long the shutdown lasts and no matter how it ends? Which is my way of also asking: How long do you think this will go on, and how do you think this will play out in the end? You know me: I like to shove a crystal ball in front of you two and make you play fortune teller. I can give you rune stones if you prefer those.
Anderson: I am not sure if and when Democratic leaders “blink” because they are stuck between a base that is incensed about, well, just about everything, and a more pragmatic slice of their party that doesn’t think this is the hill to die on. In my own polling, voters were asked if Democrats should withhold votes on government funding in order to stand up to the Trump administration, and while independents leaned very much against doing so, Democratic voters were split right down the middle. It feels so much like an Obama-era shutdown, where Republican congressional leadership was under pressure from its base to fight, fight, fight, even if the endgame was entirely unclear.
Silver: It’s very dangerous to make a prediction here. But the one person who probably has the clearest incentives is the Senate Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer. He’s really walking a tightrope; he didn’t want to shut the government down in the spring. And he’s extremely unpopular; in a recent Pew poll, even a plurality of Democrats have an unfavorable view of him. If he hadn’t done anything at all, his leadership might not have survived it. But if the shutdown goes on much longer, he might lose what little control he has over the message.
Bruni: Can I ask a Schumer question that’s really a Democratic-realism, Democratic-strategy question? I realize that he’s first up at the microphone during shutdown news conferences because he’s the top Democrat in the Senate, and thus the major Democratic player in all this, but he also has an approval rating almost 20 points below Trump’s. Which member of Congress would the party be wisest to make their shutdown mouthpiece, their shutdown hood ornament?
Anderson: My unsatisfying answer is I do not know if the identity of the messenger matters a lot here, or what your marginal improvement is over swapping out Schumer for a different member of the Senate.
Silver: To some extent, a shutdown deal might be thought of as the Chuck Schumer Salvation Act. If you’re a Democrat who thinks he’s an effective leader, you’d also like to book the win. But he’s an avatar for a very unpopular Democratic Party, and he’s unpopular himself. Getting a few concessions might give Democrats a morale boost, but higher morale isn’t necessarily something you want if it’s time to look in the mirror and make deeper changes.
Anderson: Nate, this is like my mixed feelings on my Gators beating Texas last week, because this only prolongs us continuing to have an unpopular head coach at the helm and delays making real, necessary changes.
Silver: The analogy I’d draw is to something like Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address. I thought it was a mediocre speech — not bad, not great — but Democrats were over the moon about it because it came at a time when there were (entirely appropriate!) questions about Biden’s political fitness. That gave Democrats a morale boost — which I’d argue was unhelpful because they’d have had more options if they’d shoved Biden aside sooner.
Bruni: There are people who wonder why Democrats didn’t vote for the continuing resolution, let the Obamacare and Medicaid cutbacks take effect and then have more real-world pain to point to and campaign on in the midterms. If they get what they’re asking for in the shutdown fight, won’t they have less, in terms of the health-care impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill, to make a fuss about next year? Aren’t they to some degree saving Republicans from themselves? I understand that they’d also be saving affected Americans, and that’s noble and proper. But if continued Republican control of Congress is, as many Democrats insist, the possible end of democracy, is that then the right calculation?
Silver: Yes, I basically agree with that — with the catch that Democrats are at least somewhat raising the salience of health care as an issue, and it’s a good issue for them. Though how much the public will remember about any of this 13 months from now in an environment with so much important news is highly questionable.
Anderson: The one smart thing Democrats have done is choose health care as the issue on which they have decided to fight. While Republicans still hold an advantage over Democrats on the question of which party has “a better plan” on a wide range of issues, health care is still an area where Republicans struggle. Republicans are viewed as being more “strong” and “effective” than Democrats, which allows them to have latitude even if the plans they pursue are more extreme than where your median voter might be, i.e., “At least they’re doing something, Democrats do nothing.”
Bruni: The “Meet the Press” appearances, the dueling op-eds — there is, indeed, something anachronistic and time-warp-y about all of this. But beyond the TV shows and newspapers, there are also what the media loves to call the “meme wars.” And those have certainly been entertaining. Do they matter at all? As goes TikTok, so goes the Republic?
Anderson: The “meme wars” can move opinion on issues where there are stark visuals and the capacity for clear, concise storytelling. For instance, we’ve seen how social media content has driven opinion dramatically on Gaza. I’m not sure this kind of social content regarding the shutdown is easy to produce right now, but the minute you do start seeing more things, like airport air-traffic control towers closing, etc., the more likely this story will lend itself to that medium.
Bruni: Nate, you’re a betting guy versed in these practices and terms. What would you set as the over/under on when the shutdown ends, and, Kristen, tell us whether you’d take the over or the under.
Silver: The conventional wisdom, according to prediction markets — I should note here that I consult for Polymarket — is an over/under of roughly two weeks. I suppose I’d take the “under” on the conventional wisdom if you gave me a free bet, but I’d rather save my money and bet on my Detroit Tigers to win the World Series or something. It’s a very, very low-confidence bet.
Anderson: I guess for sake of being different I’ll take the over, though I wouldn’t put down too much money on it. The missing factor we haven’t discussed as much is the filibuster, which is something Republicans could try to nuke as a way to get around this. Right now, Republican leaders are adamantly opposed to going nuclear as a way out of this. I wonder if that conversation will grow louder in the coming week or two.
Bruni: I’ve never even heard of Polymarket. Could be a Costco rival for all I know. Does it sell roast chickens? Here’s an imagined scenario — Hakeem Jeffries and Mike Johnson agree to a one-on-one debate about the shutdown. Who emerges on top, performance-wise, and is the television audience larger than the number of members of the House? What if Majorie Taylor Greene agrees to provide real-time, on-set heckling?
Anderson: The television audience would not be larger than the number of members in the House, and could in fact be smaller. Democrats did try to create some streaming programming to message on the shutdown, and I think you can say it went poorly.
Silver: I’d rather watch a preseason hockey game than a Jeffries-Johnson debate (I am a Rangers fan, to be fair). Jeffries’s favorability ratings aren’t so bad, though — slightly less bad than Schumer’s. Basically, the fresher a face that Democrats provide to the public, the less that voters seem to instinctively recoil.
Bruni: Speaking of my favorite Marjorie (anyone get that vintage TV reference?), she endorsed the Democrats’ key demand on health care. She has pushed for the release of the Epstein documents. What word or phrase comes to mind to describe these developments?
Anderson: I feel like I’ve seen that “the worst person you know just made a great point” meme getting some mileage from Democrats in my life lately.
Silver: It illustrates the extent to which meme wars, culture wars, have come to dominate politics over the sort of big debates over the welfare state and fiscal spending that we had during the Romney-Ryan era.
Bruni: Let’s finish by staying in Congress, revisiting its cast of players and once again asking you to be clairvoyants. You can use tarot cards this time. It’s February 2027. Who is the Senate majority leader and who is the House speaker? You’ll note that that’s my sneaky way of simultaneously asking you how the parties fare in the midterms.
Anderson: I see what you’re doing here. I feel more comfortable saying John Thune will remain Senate majority leader than I do making a prediction about the House.
Silver: As a play-the-percentages guy, I think Democrats might be favored to pick up the G.O.P. Senate seat next year in North Carolina, where they got their preferred candidate in Roy Cooper, and another in Maine, where they suddenly have a lot of interesting choices. But that would be two seats, when they need four. While they certainly have solid chances in Ohio and other places, I’ll make the safe choice and agree with Kristen on Thune in the Senate.
Bruni: We’ll, um, shut down there. Thank you both.
Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer and Republican pollster, is the author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”
Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.
Source photographs by Kevin Dietsch and Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book “The Age of Grievance” and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter. Instagram Threads @FrankBruni • Facebook
The post ‘Democrats Fumbled This’: 3 Writers Assess Where We Are With the Shutdown appeared first on New York Times.
