Republicans say they're ready to reopen, while Democrats insist on insurance subsidies

WASHINGTON — The opposing partisan strategies that led to the U.S. government shutdown can’t both be winners. But both parties remain confident theirs is the strategy that will grab the public's support.

The White House and congressional Republicans remain confident they hold the upper hand tactically. They are refusing to negotiate with Democrats who are seeking to tack a renewal of expiring health insurance subsidies onto legislation that will reopen federal operations.

But Democrats also think they are winning, and polling suggests early public backing for their holdout position.

As the shutdown enters its seventh day on Tuesday, the key question remains: Which side ultimately will blink?

"People are beginning to realize this is not a Republican shutdown," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) asserted Monday. He said Republicans are interested and willing to talk about improving health care.

"But there's nothing for us to negotiate or debate right now," he said, noting that the immediate issue is reopening the government and that the House already has passed a straightforward bill to do that.

But for that bill to advance in the Senate, at least seven non-GOP votes are necessary. The measure failed to get that support for a fifth time Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said if Johnson "is serious about lowering costs and protecting the health care of the American people, why wait? Democrats are ready to do it now."

Public support

Observers say public opinion can change.

"Historically, the party using the shutdown as leverage shoulders most of the blame," said Joshua Huder, a congressional expert at Georgetown’s University’s Government Affairs Institute. In this case, that would be Democrats, he said.

Yet, some early polls on the shutdown show this Democratic strategy "is sustainable for the foreseeable future," said Marjorie Hershey, a professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Among the latest of those came Monday with the release of a Harvard/CAPS Harris Poll that found that 53% of those interviewed blamed Republicans for the shutdown, compared with 47% who blamed Democrats.

That finding followed similar findings from other polling, including a Washington Post survey also conducted Wednesday — the first day of the shutdown — that found that 47% of those surveyed blame Trump and Republicans in Congress for the shutdown, while 30% blame Democrats and 23% said they're not sure.

But Hershey and other independent political analysts also concede that these polls come on the first days of the shutdown, and that, "What public opinion is tying the shutdown to — and opinions on shutdowns — tends to evolve over time."

Hershey said sentiment and shutdown villains can significantly change if the shutdown wears on and government service disruptions or even layoffs begin to produce more direct impacts on people’s lives.

Huder agreed. He also argued that as much as the shutdown is a policy battle, it also has been an attempt by Democrats to "mask" deep fractures within their party.

Those include differences on whether their leaders should take a harder-line stand against President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda, which has been focused on cost-cutting by remaking federal agencies, eliminating jobs and unilaterally rescinding or clawing back previously approved congressional spending.

The big rub in accepting any kind of agreed-upon deal to talk later "is the level of trust across the aisle," said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. "There needs to be a tangible quid pro quo on at least the Obamacare subsidies: an ironclad commitment on the part of the GOP that will kickstart the serious, substantive negotiations."

Meanwhile, Trump remains a big shutdown wild card — suddenly resurrecting claims of a willingness to speak with congressional Democrats.

“We have a negotiation going on right now with the Democrats that could lead to very good things, and I'm talking about good things with regard to health care,” Trump told reporters at the White House Monday.

But Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) both said there were no current talks, though they said they were open to discussions.

Focus on health subsidies

At the least, Democrats will be able to say they put a spotlight on the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies and the potential impact on millions of Americans, if not renewed by the year’s end, as well as the extent of GOP cuts to other health care programs for the poor.

"The impact will be felt especially hard in red states that did not expand Medicaid and by groups Republicans traditionally rely on to vote for them," said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In fact, he said, as many as 8 in 10 Americans want Congress to renew the enhanced ACA, according to Kaiser Family Foundation polling.

Altman said that while there might be debate now over who will own the shutdown, there also will be debate on which party owns the health insurance cost spikes if the credits go away. Republicans in so-called swing districts, he predicted, especially will want to see a deal on extending the subsidies by the year’s end.

"My feeling is that with the dynamics we’re seeing right now," Altman said, "there will be some kind of deal [on renewing the subsidies] by the end of the year."

Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez contributed to this story.