More Voters Say They’d Blame Republicans Than Democrats for a Shutdown

Both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington have spent the past few weeks trying to frame a familiar narrative around government shutdowns: It’s the other side’s fault. A new Morning Consult survey suggests it’s Democrats who have been a bit more successful in making their case in the court of public opinion.

According to the Sept. 26-28 survey, 45% of voters said Republicans in Congress would be to blame if the federal government shuts down on Oct. 1 because an agreement is not reached on funding levels, compared with 32% who said they would blame congressional Democrats.

Notably, Republican voters are more likely than Democrats to say their own party would be at fault (33% to 22%), while independent voters are more likely to point their fingers to the right than the left (41% to 24%).

The survey comes as Washington faces crunch time in the latest showdown, with Senate Democrats playing hardball with demands for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year and an unwinding of Medicaid cuts enacted by Republicans earlier this year in exchange for their votes to keep the government open.

This time around, voters across the aisle are more likely to perceive a shutdown threat than they were in March, when Democrats put up the votes to keep the government open in the 11th hour — and promptly drew the ire of their liberal base.

Roughly half of voters (48%) said a shutdown is likely, up from 36% who said the same in March. The share of Democrats who think Washington won’t come together to advance a funding patch is slightly higher this time around (55% to 50%), but the biggest growth in shutdown expectations is among independents (30% to 46%) and Republicans (26% to 43%).

The bottom line

This data come as voters have begun to tune in to the shutdown debate, with 3 in 5 saying they’d seen, read or heard a “a lot” or “some” about negotiations over government funding ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline in our survey over the weekend — up from 41% at the beginning of the month.

The growth in awareness was a bit larger among Democratic voters, who often report hearing more about mainstream news anyway. However,in our latest survey, they’re only slightly more likely than Republicans to say they’ve heard about the shutdown talks (63% to 60%).

As has nearly always been the case with shutdowns, all parties will come out looking worse, at least for a brief period of time. But Republicans should understand that there is a palpable perception among voters that their majority status in Washington renders them responsible for the outcome in the outset, regardless of who is actually threatening to withhold their votes.