The messaging battle over who caused the government shutdown shows no signs of letting up, but one week in, lawmakers are not sure whether that fight will still be relevant in a year when 2026 midterm campaigns are in full-swing.
Sen. Lindsey Graham — who has been through multiple shutdowns in his congressional career — had a simple answer when asked if he thought the current stalemate would have an impact on the midterms.
“No,” he told NOTUS, adding, “I don’t think it’s going to be outcome determinative either way.”
Lawmakers know that a government shutdown in October 2025 may not make or break voter decisions in the polling booth in November 2026. After all, the 2018 and 2013 government shutdowns under presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama were not consequential in subsequent midterm campaign cycles. In fact, after the 2013 shutdown, Republicans — who took the lion’s share of the blame for it — won big in both the House and Senate.
Republicans are banking that voters will write off Democrats’ fight against the short-term funding bill as empty grandstanding.
“I don’t really believe that the sincerity of what the Democrats are doing is real,” Sen. Jim Justice told NOTUS. “I think it’s all about developing a platform or cause to say, ‘I’m here for you. Vote for me.’”
“Midterms are right around the horizon and everything. ‘Vote for me. Look what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to stand up for you,’” Justice continued. “When, my God, we voted, we voted for all this. We don’t need to be shutting the government down to negotiate anything.”
Perhaps that’s why neither party has invested heavily in advertisements that discuss the funding lapse. Fox News reported last week that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee each made modest four-figure ad buys — meaning each committee spent less than $10,000.
But both committees have invested in a broader messaging strategy that ties the shutdown to themes they believe will help their parties win seats in 2026: immigration for Republicans and health care for Democrats.
Specifically, nearly every Democratic lawmaker has withheld their vote on a short-term funding bill that would extend current spending levels into November, demanding a permanent extension of expiring Affordable Care Act tax subsidies and restrictions on the Trump administration clawing back congressionally approved funding.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have each done dozens of press conferences and media interviews hammering their argument that Democrats shut down the government to give health care to undocumented immigrants — a misleading claim that plays squarely into the issues that helped Republicans carry the House, Senate and White House in 2024.
NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella told NOTUS that that GOP message will continue into 2026.
“House Democrats sold out working families to bankroll freebies for criminal illegal immigrants and appease their radical base,” Marinella said. “While they engage in political theater and lie to the American people, the NRCC will ensure voters know Democrats voted to put them last.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have focused their media circuit on what they consider a broader trend of GOP attacks on health care affordability, starting with Republicans’ massive July reconciliation bill that cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid.
“Republicans created a crisis that will result in health care getting ripped away from millions of Americans, shutter rural hospitals, and jack-up health costs for everyone else — and they can’t be bothered to lift a finger to address it,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement to NOTUS. “Contrast that with Democrats fighting every day to save affordable health care for the American people.”
“This is a debate and message that Republicans are already losing, and will absolutely be a defining issue for the midterms, helping power Democrats to the majority,” Shelton said.
There’s data backing up Democrats’ position. An October Washington Post survey found that 47% of Americans blamed Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown.
“Every poll we have seen shows they want us to do it, and they feel that the Republicans are far more responsible for the shutdown than we are,” Schumer told reporters Monday.
But polls can often be a “pick your own adventure” for each party. The NRCC blasted out a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll on Monday that found 67% of voters think Democrats should vote to extend current government spending levels without additional funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Democrats insist that midterm campaigns are not driving their current posture.
“We are not thinking about its impact on the midterm election,” Jeffries told reporters Monday.
Health care is notoriously tricky to message on: It’s an incredibly wonky policy subject — and the inner workings of Affordable Care Act subsidies don’t translate easily into campaign ads. Government shutdowns, on the other hand, are a layup of a headline for political messaging, and something many Americans have a grasp on.
But over the next few months, many Americans will likely get notices from their insurers that their monthly and yearly premiums will increase if the subsidies aren’t extended. Democrats believe that will boost the issue’s saliency.
“Most of these people will receive a written notice in the next few days about what’s going to happen to their health insurance premiums,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin said. “People across America — millions — will understand this issue personally.”
Of course, the length of the government shutdown will determine how long voters remember it.
Although hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed, they will not miss a paycheck until mid-October. The Office of Management and Budget’s director, Russell Vought, has also dangled using the shutdown as pretext for permanently firing certain federal workers, which some Republican lawmakers have warned could cost the GOP “moral high ground” in shutdown messaging.
Plus, much of this shutdown fight has been fought on social media. Trump and Republicans have seemingly bet that AI-generated clips of Vought dressed as the Grim Reaper and Democratic leaders wearing sombreros will engage voters. Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping that cat videos explaining their perspective on the shutdown will endear them to voters. The memes are just one piece of each party’s digital strategy, but they’re reflective of the tactics operatives are using to reach voters.
Lawmakers know that gaming out the implications of the shutdown in 13 months is likely a fool’s errand.
“It completely depends on how long it goes and whether or not the American people get clarity on who’s fighting for them,” Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, told NOTUS.