Shutdown Polling Favors GOP
Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats are in a serious bind, with bad polling on the one hand and a wrathful hard-left base on the other.
It’s hard to imagine a less popular CNN personality than fresh-faced Harry Enten. Enten, after all, is the network’s chief data analyst, and his job thus consists of studying polls and telling hard truths — truths that of late have painted one grim picture after another for the Democrats and their Leftmedia brethren.
A few weeks ago, for example, the exuberant Enten told the network’s dozens of viewers that the American people trust Republicans more than Democrats on the key issues of the day — namely, crime, immigration, and the economy. “Whatever Democrats are doing,” he said, “it ain’t working.” More recently, he revealed that the Democrats’ odds of taking control of the House of Representatives next year “have gone plummeting down” while the GOP’s chances are “up like a rocket, up like gold.”
I can practically hear Wolf Blitzer muttering, I hate this kid.
And yesterday, Enten administered yet more castor oil to the Democrats — this time on the matter of who’s to blame for the government shutdown.
“This shutdown,” he said, “is a different world for Trump than the 2018-19 shutdown. He’s in a much better spot. His net approval is up slightly during this shutdown vs. dropping during 2018-19. Why? The percent who blame him a great deal for the shutdown is down significantly now versus 2018-19.”
This shutdown is a different world for Trump than the 2018-19 shutdown. He’s in a much better spot.
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 20, 2025
His net approval is up slightly during this shutdown vs. dropping during 2018-19.
Why? The % who blame him a great deal for the shutdown is down significantly now vs. 2018-19. pic.twitter.com/WHEqHaqo4M
During the shutdown in Trump’s first term, 61% of voters blamed him. This time around? Not so much. According to an AP-NORC poll, only 48% blame him for the current shutdown. That’s a yuuuge difference politically, and it has emboldened Trump and Republicans, making them disinclined to cut a deal with the Party of Big Government.
“This shutdown hasn’t even hit Donald Trump’s support at all,” says Enten. “His net approval rating is actually up a point. … This one is not hurting him at all. There’s no reason Donald Trump might say, at least when it comes to popular support, ‘I wanna get out of this shutdown.’”
Clearly, the desperate Democrats have miscalculated. Cowed by his base and frightened by the prospect of losing his Senate seat to a lightweight former barkeep who thinks the world’s largest accounting firm is dumping toxic chemicals into our waterways, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is no longer gloating that “every day gets better” for him and his fellow holdouts.
But it gets worse for the Democrats: They’re also fearful of the wrath of their hard-left base if they reopen the government without getting some GOP concessions. As The Hill reports, “‘People are going to get hammered’ if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government and keep it funded through November 21, said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk candidly about their party.” Said another anonymous source: “We would have enough votes” to reopen the government “if people were not terrified of getting the guillotine.”
When it comes to politics, nothing says “we’re in deep doo-doo” better than requests for anonymity.
So it’s a double-bind for the Democrats: bad polling on the one hand, and political retribution on the other. But that doesn’t mean the Republicans are free and clear. On the contrary, the underlying issue here is more than just the Democrats’ desire to give illegal aliens “free” healthcare on your dime. It’s also the long-predicted failure of ObamaCare and the looming expiration of COVID-era subsidies that have been propping up that disastrous program. When the American people begin to feel this pain, the Republicans had better have a plan and a strong and readily repeatable message.
It takes a bold and convincing card player to bluff his way to a pot with 2-7 unsuited. The Democrats, though, are neither bold nor convincing. They’re just craven and stupid. And they’re in a helluva fix.
Pass the popcorn.
