There’s only one political question if negotiations fail as expected and the government shuts down this week: How do Democrats convince Americans it is a good idea?
This is an incredibly important moment for the opposition party and a major test of its often-warring coalition. Early polling from Morning Consult suggests more voters would blame Republicans than Democrats for a shutdown. That’s the opportunity.
Ensuring that actually remains the case may require something often elusive: Democrats in the Trump era speaking with one voice.
“I don’t think this is a hard message to communicate at all,” said Kristen Crowell, executive director of Fair Share America, who recently finished a 17-state bus tour where she talked with independents and Republicans about Trump’s policies. “Voters get this,” Crowell said. “Constituents understand clearly who is wrecking our lives, who is willing to tank the economy, who is driving up our costs.”
The caveat, she said, is that Democrats have to “actually stand together.”
Groups that have been pushing Democrats to take a hard line since the March spending debacle are rapidly switching gears from criticizing elected Democratic leaders to helping them keep a consistent and unrelenting message.
Health care has become the defining issue Democrats are rallying around. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have used the spending fight in Washington to hammer Republicans over unpopular Medicaid cuts in Trump’s budget law. In the days leading up to the funding deadline, they’ve also demanded extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that, if allowed to expire at the end of this year, will raise premium prices for millions of Americans.
Republicans, meanwhile, have told their own that the Medicaid cuts aren’t playing well in battleground states.
“The most impactful things are how this is a response to affordability and health care,” a Democratic-aligned strategist said. “Everything else is secondary to those two.”
Liberal groups are already on the air messaging against vulnerable Republicans with the health care message. Unrig Our Economy has been running health care ads in 14 districts before the spending fight.
On Monday night, with the shutdown looming, pressure group Indivisible – known for making life difficult for Democratic leadership – urged its members to stay in formation.
“It is possible -- not guaranteed, but possible -- to unify congressional Democrats around these demands in this moment. We should have a different set of demands for a different moment,” read a newsletter sent to Indivisible’s listserv. “But for now, these are the demands of the opposition, and we should back up these demands.”
Reproductive Freedom For All, formerly NARAL, debuted an image Monday of Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune that it plans to project across D.C. in the coming days. The ad says: “Republicans: Shutting down the government to ban abortion,” before pivoting to “And raise health care costs.”
Democrats have not exactly done this before; they’re so far standing together despite concerns from moderates, and digging in their heels. A successful shutdown messaging project is one that acknowledges the challenges for Democrats, while continuing to remind them what’s at stake, strategists said.
“A thing that I’ve been encouraging a lot of them to do is understand that they have to occupy two different roles,” one senior strategist at a Democratic-aligned outside group said of how they’re advising lawmakers.
The first is to seek negotiations over spending and regular congressional order, they said.
The second is to “understand that this is a fight.” If the shutdown happens, the strategist said, elected Democrats need to “flood the zone,” talking to voters constantly in any way they can. “I would encourage them to consider trying some new stuff,” they said.
More than one source pointed to the week ahead, when House Democrats and outside pressure groups are expected to hold multiple rallies in D.C. One goal, according to an organizer, is to keep wayward senators from second-guessing themselves or caving to Republican pressure by repeatedly exposing them to constituents they claim to be holding the line for.
“IRL validation,” the pressure group strategist said. Holding the coalition together, keeping it focused on the broader fight rather than legislative intricacies, is the only way the messaging will work.
“We don’t need my neighbor in Wisconsin to understand what a continuing resolution is, what a deadline is when we’re talking about appropriations,” Crowell said. “But they do understand that right now, their health care cost is going to go up, and they’re worried about how they’re going to pay that next bill.”
The simplest message for Democrats? “All [Republicans] need to do is get off their knees and stand up to Donald Trump, and we could end some of this bullshit,” Crowell told NOTUS.
The White House is already putting out its rebuttal.
“It’s a Democratic shutdown,” one White House official told NOTUS after the president’s meeting with congressional leaders ended without a deal. “The easiest course of action is just voting on the bill. Instead, Democrats want to play political games.”