Who's to blame for the shutdown? All of the above, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Americans blame both Republicans and Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown and are worried services could falter as a third of the federal workforce sits on unpaid leave, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The five-day poll, completed on Tuesday, asked Americans nationwide how much blame Democrats, Republicans and President Donald Trump deserve for the shutdown, now in its ninth day. Some 67% of respondents said Republicans deserved a fair amount or a great deal of blame, while 63% said the same of Democrats. Some 63% also said Trump, a Republican, deserves at least a fair amount of blame.

The survey of 1,154 adults nationwide has a margin of error of 3 percentage points in either direction, meaning the level of blame is broadly similar for the two parties and for Trump.

Republican and Democratic leaders blame the other side for the shutdown, which started October 1 after Congress failed to approve new spending legislation.

Both parties are trying to position themselves to benefit politically from the shutdown heading into the November 2026 midterm elections, though some lawmakers have warned about trying to eke out an edge from a situation that involves significant staffing shortages at federal offices and is already leading to delays in air travel.

"At the end of the day, we’re hurting people somewhere. How in the world can we come out ahead?" said Republican Senator Jim Justice of West Virginia. "This is not a game, really, of the Senate against the House or the Republicans against the Democrats. This is real live people who are depending upon us to do our jobs right.” 

Republicans have majorities in both chambers of Congress but cannot pass a funding bill without some Democratic votes in the Senate, which requires 60 of the 100 members to agree on most legislation.

Democrats say they will not support a bill until Republicans agree to extend health insurance subsidies, with congressional Democrats arguing that public ire will fall on Republicans as many Americans this month get notices on how much they will have to pay for health insurance next year.

"The public is seeing how bad healthcare costs are and their rising prices, and they know we're on their side," said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

WORRIES ABOUT HITS TO SERVICES

Many Americans worry the shutdown could hit them personally. Some 49% of respondents to the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were concerned there could be delays in services they rely on, such as Social Security payments or student aid. Thirty-three percent said they were not worried.

Some 39% of Democrats said they were very concerned about the shutdown, while 12% of Republicans said the same.

Trump, who took office pledging to slash the federal workforce, has threatened to carry out mass firings during the shutdown but the White House has sent mixed signals on whether permanent layoffs were coming.

Among respondents, Republican taste for mass firings has ebbed since earlier in the year when Trump enlisted billionaire Elon Musk to slash federal spending under an office known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on April 2, 76% of Republican respondents said they supported firing tens of thousands of federal workers. In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, 62% of Republicans backed large-scale layoffs. Only 8% of Democrats backed layoffs, a trivially small share in public polling and largely unchanged from the prior poll.

(Reporting by Jason Lange, additional reporting by David Morgan; editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)