Senate Republicans Confident Voters Will Blame Democrats For Imminent Government Shutdown

Facing a dwindling timeline to fund the government, Republicans are expressing optimism that voters will blame Democrats for sparking a government shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is arguing that Republicans will shoulder the blame for a shutdown despite Democrats being dug in against a GOP spending bill to temporarily fund government operations. Republicans have countered that the House-passed stopgap spending measure is bipartisan and have pointed to recent polling showing that a majority of Americans oppose a shutdown.

“We have a bipartisan solution to keep the government open,” Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation, referring to Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden and Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman bucking their party to support the GOP spending bill. “Democrats are trying to hold this ransom with $1.5 trillion in spending.”

“Evidently, they think it’s more important to give healthcare to illegals than to take care of our rural hospitals,” Moreno added. “If seven Democrats want to have a little bit of common sense, they can join us, keep the government open and we’ll negotiate with them.”

Most legislation, including government funding bills, need 60 votes to pass the Senate. Given Senate Republicans’ 53-47 majority, GOP leadership needs buy-in from a handful of Democrats to advance spending measures. The current impasse is all but certain to lead to shutdown when government funding expires on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.

When asked whether he was worried that Republicans would take the blame for a shutdown, Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn told the DCNF that he didn’t know “how that could possibly be the case” with a “clean” GOP spending bill having been voted down by the Democrats.