Q&A of the Day – Who Is ‘Winning’ The Shutdown? When Will It End?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio Absolutely cannot believe Schumer will keep the Federal Government CLOSED beyond October 31st.
Bottom Line: There are three parallel truths in play this Halloween pertaining to the partial federal government shutdown. 1) The average American living the typical life still has not felt the effect of the partial government shutdown in anyway. It’s a point that’s hard to understate with 34% of the federal government having been offline for 31 days. 2) It’s an abomination that at a minimum Democrats have directly voted not pay essential federal government employees who’ve been working throughout the partial shutdown. The average person working the average job living the typical life understands this point (that Republicans have attempted to pay employees and Democrats have stopped them from doing so). 3) The dynamic will begin to shift the other way after today. Specifically, that the average person hasn’t felt the impact. So about...
The two big ‘cliff’ events that kick in after today pertain to SNAP benefits and the ACA. Federal funding for SNAP benefits runs dry today and tomorrow marks the start of open enrollment for Obamacare plans. There are currently 41.7 million American families using the SNAP program, 2.9 million of which are in Florida. As for ACA plans, 20.5 million families are currently on them, 4.7 million of which are in Florida. Now there’s some overlap in those numbers, and even if they were unique, we’re still talking only about a fifth of the country (though about a third of Floridians). But as of tomorrow, the shutdown would begin to impact meaningful percentages of the overall population, including many of the most vulnerable. For these reasons, and to the point of today’s note, the pressure on congressional leaders, but especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is likely to become immense.
At the crux of the situation politically is this. Democrats have demonstrably overplayed their hand with this partial government shutdown. This became evident recently when the largest federal employee union, which historically backs Democrats (95% of the time) and endorsed Kamala Harris for president last year, the American Federation of Government Employees, urged Democrats to back the GOP continuing resolution. But it’s also clear within the data.
If you look at the RealClear Politics average of polls pertaining to party favorability – there's something in the side by side that jumps out at you. The Republican Party’s net favorability rating is 12-points higher than the record low favorability of the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party is currently only viewed favorably by less than 35% of this country. What’s more is what the trend has been since the partial government shutdown began. This is best summed up by CNN’s data reporter Harry Enten this week when he said this:
When we’re looking at the Republican Party overall, that brand is actually up two points. So what we’re seeing here is that the Republican brand in Congress has actually improved somewhat compared to pre-shutdown, despite the fact that Republicans control both chambers. The net approval rating is up 12 points versus pre-shutdown. But it’s not just with the base; it’s also with the middle of the electorate. Look at this — among independents, it’s up eight points as well. What we’re seeing is that the Republican brand has actually gotten better among independents, and it’s also gotten better among Republicans as well — that Republican brand, when it comes to those in Congress.
And as for Democrats Harry noted this:
The generic congressional ballot, which traditionally Democrats have done really well on. If you look back to this point when Trump was president the first time around, Democrats were up 11 points. Look at where it is now — Democrats are ahead, but they’re actually only up three points.
This is, in fact, the worst position Democrats have been in on a generic ballot at this point in a midterm when there was a Republican president in the last 20 years. And this is no different from pre-shutdown. So Republicans aren’t losing on this metric either.
They’ve become more popular, and they’re actually in a pretty good position for them historically when it comes to the generic congressional ballot. This is a concerning number for Democrats because it’s considerably worse than they traditionally do in midterm elections when there’s a Republican president.
To me, in evaluating the data but also just the overall mood of the country, there are two very obvious things that illustrates just how out of touch with reality the TDS riddled Democrats Party is.
The first is this... Democrats, especially elected elites, are so TDS-driven they believe that the entire country, aside from what they view as a small group of “magas” (as they’ll often slander them), really have a problem with President Trump and thus the Republican Party too. It is so obviously blind to the reality that Joe Biden was without question one of the worst presidents in American history, Democrats had control of everything, and made everything worse for the average person living the average life trying to take care of their family. And thus, voters threw them out less than a year ago, and what have they done since? Nothing but attempting to stop what those very same voters voted for. Voters understand this.
Meanwhile, what’s been happening? Slowly but surely the average person living the average life trying to take care of their family to doing a little bit better. Under Trump the average income has finally risen above the rate of inflation. The average 401k continues to hit record highs. Gas prices are the lowest they’ve been since right after he was president previously. Inflation is lower; interest rates are lower. There’s relative peace in the Middle east and various other parts of the world. Life is far from perfect for the average person living the typical life, but it’s better than before. All Democrats represent to the typical person is what Republicans, starting with Trump are working to fix. And then Democrats have the audacity to vote against paying essential employees who’ve been working, including the military? You have to be a stone-cold scumbag POS to do that kind of thing. And that’s what every single Democrat in the Senate, save three, have done repeatedly.
The Democrat Party has treated the average person living the average life as though they’re idiots for years. What’s different is that the jig ended with Joe Biden because the average American was reminded of how profound of an impact a terrible president and his terrible party can have on their daily life. People are paying attention, and they’re generally, aside from Mamdani voters in New York City, not idiots.