So far, more Americans are blaming Republicans than Democrats for the shutdown – and it is not close. Since the shutdown began, four polls have asked Americans who they blame most for the shutdown. In addition, one poll was conducted just before the shutdown began. This is the summary of those five polls.

As one would expect, the partisan breakdown of who is to blame closely tracks party identification. But among the all-important independent voters, Republicans are clearly losing the blame game. Independents are almost twice as likely to fault Republicans. However, being true to their moniker, a plurality of independents blame both parties equally.

Of course, these results are far outside the margins of error on these polls. And while it may be fair to characterize several of these pollsters as left-leaning, these results are so lopsided that there can be little doubt that the shutdown, at least so far, is hurting Republicans more than Democrats.

I was surprised by these results.  Traditionally, the minority party holding the government hostage has borne the blame for shutdowns, so I expected to see the same pattern this time. I think there might be a couple of reasons why the Republicans are getting blamed this time around.

First, most past shutdowns were instigated by a Republican minority. Over time, shutdown politics may have become a core part of the Republican brand in the minds of many Americans. Additionally, all previous administrations have denounced the damage that a shutdown could cause. However, the Trump administration has almost embraced it. In a White House interview on September 30, Trump said, “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want — and they’d be Democrat things.” My guess is that kind of language is hitting many voters, especially independents, crossways.

However, there may be another reason why Republicans are being blamed.  While they have attempted to frame the shutdown as a dispute over healthcare for illegal immigrants, many Americans may be focused on another issue that more directly impacts their pocketbooks – the Affordable Care subsidies. A CBO report last year estimated that the expiration of the subsidies would affect 12-14 million Americans, with 2-4 million losing their healthcare coverage and another 9-10 million seeing substantially higher premiums.

Republicans only won the popular vote in all House races in 2024 by 3.8 million votes. Having 12-14 million Americans hopping mad over losing their health insurance or seeing much higher premiums is probably not a winning strategy for the midterms.  

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