The government shutdown is not helping an already weak Democratic Party

The Democratic Party is in the wilderness right now. Not only are they out of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House, they are at record low approval ratings, and on the wrong side of many 80-20 cultural issues, including men in women’s sports and illegal immigration.

President Trump is moving forward with his agenda at record speed. Democrats have been banking on the current government shutdown putting a dent in Republican ascendancy. But things don’t seem to be going the way Democrats would like.

In new polls from AP-NORC and Quinnipiac on how the public is responding to the partial government shutdown, the Republican Party’s brand is actually up two points. This sin’t a major increase, but it is not a drop. Net approval ratings for Republicans in Congress are up 5% since before the shutdown.

Republicans are up 12 points with their base since the shutdown began and crucially up 8 points with Independents in that same time period. These are not the numbers that Democrats hoped for.

This might be the case because the shutdown was caused by Democrats not voting for the clean CR bill to keep the government open. Republicans may have a majority in the Senate, but 60 votes are needed to the bill to pass, and the GOP only has 53 seats. Had 7 Democrats voted for the bill, the government would not have shut down.

On the generic ballot, Democrats are doing a lot worse than they were at this time in Trump’s first term. At this time in Trump’s first term, October 2017, Democrats were leading the generic congressional poll by 11 points. They now lead it by 3 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 the government shutdown has not changed this.

A Democratic Party that is already in a weak position is not benefitting from this government shutdown. If things don’t change in a positive way for Democrats, they could be in for a rough midterm election next year, and a rough few years in general.