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Senate Democrats appear ready to hold their ground in the fight over the government shutdown.
Members of the caucus emerged from a two-hour meeting on Thursday declaring that the 47-member group is coalescing around a unified strategy rather than splintering into factions, which could mean the government funding fight lasts well beyond the current 37 days.
Republicans are poised to force Democrats to vote on reopening the government anyway. They are signaling the Senate will stay in session at least until Friday to vote on a government funding measure that would marry a stopgap bill with several full-year funding bills. A number of Democrats are looking to end the shutdown, but probably not enough to prevail in a vote on Friday, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.
One source familiar with the caucus dynamics confirmed that Democrats are inclined to continue their fight to preserve expiring health care subsidies at this point. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., says he’s willing to guarantee a vote but not an outcome, while House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is unwilling to even promise a vote in the House on the subsidies.
Instead, most Democrats want a meeting with President Donald Trump and a negotiated solution — something Republicans continue to reject. A person familiar with the bipartisan talks to reopen the government said Democrats do not believe Republicans have made any “meaningful” concessions since Tuesday’s election loss for the GOP, making it hard to move Democrats into the “yes” column.
Aisle-crossing negotiations continued this week but they also threatened to fracture Democrats between those who want to draw a harder line on extending enhanced health care subsidies and reversing the effects of the shutdown and those who want to end the impasse, which stretched into its 37th day on Thursday.
“We’re unified in how we’re going to move forward,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. “The key part of it is health care and how we take care of our federal workers.”
Underscoring the sensitivity of the discussions for Senate Democrats, many declined to comment after their two-hour lunch, which followed a three-hour meeting on Tuesday in which members of the party tried to hash out their differences.
“We know what our mission is to try to take the message from Tuesday that people want us to fight to keep costs down. And we want to stay together. So we’re working that through,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
He added that the bipartisan talks are “real” but said for Democrats “it makes a lot more sense for us to come together on a joint strategy than have division in the caucus. And we’re a lot closer to that.”
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Some Republicans believed they were close to ending the shutdown earlier this week, but see Democrats emboldened by Tuesday’s election wins and by Trump’s comments that the shutdown is hurting Republicans. Now, some Republicans aren’t sure the votes are there to end the shutdown anytime soon.
“There are Democrats who are inclined to do the right thing. They’re under an enormous amount of pressure from the left,” Thune said. “There are a few who really want to, in my view, do the right thing and get this over with.”
A vote on Friday could clarify where everyone stands. But hope is now fading that the vote will meaningfully move the needle.
“Sadly, I don’t see this ending soon, unless enough Democrats realize this is hurting them politically, so they basically overrule Schumer,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.