In March 2025, 10 Senate Democrats voted to advance a government funding bill and avoid a government shutdown. Responding to furious Democratic voters who felt betrayed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “a shutdown would be 10 or 20 times worse.” Six months later, seven Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King voted to end a 40-day stalemate. Had the shutdown continued, Sen. Tim Kaine, one of those seven, argued, “I do not believe Republicans would have conceded on health care.”
What a difference a few months make.
The House of Representatives suddenly passed a bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, ending a 76-day funding standoff. The legislation funds all of DHS with two exceptions: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Instead, Republicans will fund ICE and CBP separately through the budget reconciliation process, without the cover of Democratic votes.
The shift in shutdown politics may be a function of two circumstances, but neither is changing soon.
After federal immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this year, Democrats refused to fund ICE without reforms, and they demanded the agency’s funding be dealt with separately from the rest of DHS. In late March, Senate Republicans gave up on waiting for a handful of Democrats to end the filibuster, and they passed by unanimous consent a partial funding bill splitting off ICE, as Democrats demanded. The House dragged its feet for almost a month after that, but gave in Thursday and meekly passed the bill in a voice vote. “Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered,” Schumer crowed.
For the first time, the side precipitating a government shutdown neither had to cave in the end nor suffer a backlash for holding out. It seems that, at least for now, the politics of shutdowns have fundamentally changed.
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It should be acknowledged at this point that unlike last year’s shutdown showdowns, this one was over one department and not the whole government. But though the shutdown was more limited, its effects were still visible to voters: Lapses in TSA funding led to long lines at the airport, for instance. And the debate concerned immigration and border security, issues on which Republicans typically poll well. Many of the dynamics at play in this debate, then, should carry over to future government funding fights.
The shift in shutdown politics may be a function of two circumstances, but neither is changing soon. It certainly helps Democrats that congressional Republicans can barely keep their ship afloat. The relationship between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune is frosty at best, and while Republicans’ narrow House majority would challenge any speaker, Johnson’s tenure has consisted largely of disorganization punctuated by last-minute scrambles to push through must-pass bills. “It’s just been a mess,” one House Republican told MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell. “We haven’t really had any guidance or direction. We’re moving from one fire drill to the next every single week, and then half the time it feels like, why are we even here?”
It also helps that President Donald Trump at this point in his term is less popular than any recent president. A president doesn’t even need high approval ratings to “win” a shutdown: When House Speaker Newt Gingrich led Republicans in shutting down the government in late 1995 when Bill Clinton was president, Clinton’s approval was around 50%. When Sen. Ted Cruz and a handful of other GOP senators encouraged the House to shut down the government in 2013, President Barack Obama’s approval was in the low to mid-40s. But in both cases, the party out of the White House ended up caving.
Trump, however, is below 40% in multiple polling averages. His war with Iran and the related spike in gas prices are just the latest errors perpetuating the slow but steady downward march of his numbers. What works in this political environment may not work in opposition to even a president of average popularity. But Trump has work to do before even getting back to average popularity.
The DHS funding bill, like the other appropriations bills earlier this year, runs through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. If Republicans pass their reconciliation bill, ICE and CBP won’t be on the table then; the GOP plans to fund the agencies for three years. And with midterms looming, Congress could punt the next round of funding bills until after votes are cast, as it did in 2024. But with even some Republicans expecting Democrats to flip the House and perhaps the Senate, a postponement could hurt the GOP’s leverage. Regardless of the date for the next funding fight, though, Democrats should reprise and even deepen the resolve they showed in this one.
James Downie is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily.