To keep the government open and President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on track, Speaker Mike Johnson is both relying on Democrats and not counting on them. It just depends on the chamber.
In the House, where Johnson reigns over a four-seat majority, he isn’t expecting any Democratic help on the funding vote Tuesday — and he may not get any.
Although Republicans would welcome support from House Democrats, GOP leaders are operating under the assumption that Republicans will have to supply all the votes on their own to advance their partisan bill out of the chamber.
And to hear Republicans tell it, they’re confident they’ll succeed. But the House vote may be the easy part.
In the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome the filibuster, Republicans need a handful of Democrats to support the spending bill. And while Johnson isn’t counting on any help in the House, he believes that, if he can just get the bill to the Senate, Democrats there will cave.
Johnson’s plan is to pass the bill and then have House lawmakers leave town, putting to the Senate the ultimate question: the GOP bill or a shutdown.
While Johnson is going all-in for a long-term bill, Democrats at least sound like they’re ready to force House Republicans back to Washington.
“They may have to come back,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told NOTUS. “You don’t get to walk away from your damn job.”
But Republicans are betting it’s the Democrats who are bluffing.
“It would be up to the Democrats on whether they want to deliver the votes and keep the government open,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters. “I hope they will do that, and we’re certainly going to give them that opportunity.”
Even before Republicans released the text of the bill on Saturday, Democratic leaders were coming out against the legislation, urging members to vote no. And even centrist Democrats, who often buck leadership, aren’t keen on supporting this GOP measure.
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark on Monday predicted that Democrats would be “unified” against the legislation.
If that’s the case, Republicans can hardly afford to lose any GOP votes — particularly after Rep. Thomas Massie, a conservative who has increasingly found himself at odds with the rest of the GOP conference, said it would take a lobotomy for him to vote for the bill on Tuesday.
(If every Democrat shows up and votes no — a big if on both accounts — Massie is the only GOP vote Republicans can afford to lose.)
To get every other House Republican in line, President Donald Trump is personally getting involved. Multiple sources told NOTUS that Trump has been working behind the scenes to flip some of the Republican holdouts, with one of the sources adding that the president is making direct calls to members.
Over the weekend, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also talked with Rep. Tim Burchett — who told reporters Monday he’s “currently” a no on the funding measure — about government waste and spending, Burchett told NOTUS. The call came as House leaders and the administration are trying to flip Burchett to yes.
Vice President JD Vance also plans to attend the House GOP’s closed-door conference meeting Tuesday morning, two members told NOTUS. He is expected to echo Trump’s message that House Republicans must pass the funding measure.
At the moment, if Republicans can’t pass their bill, they say there isn’t a plan B — at least not beyond pointing fingers at Democrats.
“I don’t ever get into blame games, but if there’s a bill that comes across the table to continue government funding and the Democrats say no, just because they’re mad at Elon or whatever, gotta take responsibility for the actions,” Rep. Byron Donalds told NOTUS.
Rep. Dave Joyce said there was no use in discussing plan B while plan A was still in effect. “You don’t have to get a plan B until plan A ain’t working,” Joyce said.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer was also adamant that a plan B wasn’t necessary, telling NOTUS the bill was “going to pass” and the House was “not going to need a plan B.”
Johnson and his team have been successful in getting even his most raucous members to say they’re going to vote for the measure on Tuesday. He confidently told reporters Monday he didn’t think the government would shut down — and dismissed questions about a potential plan B.
“No one wants to shut the government down, and we are governing, doing the responsible thing as Republicans,” Johnson said.
Multiple other members dismissed the need for a plan B, insisting that the bill would pass on Tuesday.
Rep. Victoria Spartz, who was a headache for leadership leading up to the adoption of the budget resolution framework, said she would vote for it. Rep. Warren Davidson, who was another headache for leadership during that saga, also said he’d support the measure. And Rep. Chip Roy, who told critics on X that he hasn’t ever supported a stopgap funding measure before this one, was also planning to vote for the bill.
“It’s a pretty sensible bill that’s pretty down the middle,” Roy told reporters. “There’ll be some of them frustrated about lack of earmarks and stuff like that, but it’s a government funding bill that keeps everything moving forward. This is what they’ve always said they wanted, this does that.”
There are still some Republicans who are on the fence about whether to support the measure, including Reps. Burchett, Tony Gonzales and Cory Mills.
And though they’ve remained quiet publicly, both Reps. Beth Van Duyne and Kat Cammack have privately expressed concerns to leadership about voting for the bill, two sources familiar with the matter told NOTUS.
When asked when he plans to decide whether he supports the measure, Gonzales told NOTUS it would be a “game-time decision.” Mills told reporters he was still undecided, but after reviewing it, he was “leaning somewhat in favor of certain areas of the bill.”
If Johnson is able to advance the bill out of the House without Democrats, it would be the first time House Republicans were able to pass a funding bill without Democratic support since taking the majority in 2022.
But again, the House is only half of the congressional equation. If Johnson’s theory is correct, he can pass a bill in his chamber without Democratic support. But Senate Democrats warn that their votes — which would be necessary to advance the bill in the chamber — aren’t there yet.
In order for the bill to get past a Senate filibuster, at least seven Senate Democrats would need to join Republicans in voting to move it forward. Sure, there are moderate members and vulnerable 2026 incumbents who will be hard pressed to show their bipartisan bona fides. But going against the grain of your caucus isn’t always so simple.
A number of Senate Democrats, including Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray, have already issued scathing rebukes of the legislation. Members of the caucus writ large are demanding a short-term extension in funding instead, with Murray and her House counterpart, Appropriations ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro, introducing a continuing resolution Monday night.
Johnson has given no indication he intends to oblige them, and Thune has said the same.
“It will be in the Democrats’ hands,” Thune said. “It would be up to the Democrats on whether they want to deliver the votes and keep the government open.”
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Daniella Diaz and Reese Gorman are reporters at NOTUS. Ursula Perano, Ben T.N. Mause and Riley Rogerson, who are reporters at NOTUS, contributed to this report.