Newsweek, September 2025
A majority of Americans would blame President Donald Trump and Republicans for a government shutdown, according to a new poll, but one expert told Newsweek, in part, that the poll’s findings aren’t “terribly surprising.” Republican National Committee Communications Director Zach Parkinson told Newsweek that Democrats are “willing to shut down the government just to appease their far-left base.”
Congress is facing an end-of-the-month deadline to pass a budget bill to fund the federal government or face a shutdown. The impacts of a shutdown are myriad—hundreds of thousands of federal workers may be unpaid or furloughed during the shutdown, and there can be disruptions to passport processing applications, national parks and government benefits. There are also fiscal impacts—a shutdown that lasted from December 2018 through January 2019 led to a 0.1 percent reduction in GDP growth, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.
There may be political effects, as well, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats are hoping for a 2018-style blue wave to help them flip control of the House, Senate and governorships across the country. If Americans become outraged over a prolonged shutdown, that could be a challenge for Republicans as they find themselves on the defensive.
