Election Wins Could Give Democrats More Reason To Dig In On Shutdown

WASHINGTON ― The major Democratic victories in Tuesday’s elections across the country could give Senate Democrats more ground to hold firm in their demands for health care protections for millions of Americans as the government shutdown drags on into its second month.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the results in Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New York “a repudiation of the Trump agenda.”

“The cruelty, chaos, and greed that define MAGA radicalism and are skyrocketing costs were firmly rejected by the American people,” Schumer said in a statement. “If Republicans want to keep blindly following Donald Trump into the abyss of chaos, let them. The rest of America is moving forward.”

Other Democrats said that the election wins vindicated their party’s strategy in withholding government funding over the past month until Republicans agree to extend enhanced subsidies for millions of people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act. Nearly all of the Democratic candidates who won on Tuesday centered their campaigns on economic issues and the high cost of living.

“Voters are shouting from the rooftops that they want Democrats to fight for lower costs. That’s the lesson from these elections,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost.

“Maybe the take is that (a) people think Trump is out of control; and (b) people like Dems when we’re taking a stand and fighting for what we believe in – as we have been for the last month,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in a post online.

However, it’s unclear how Tuesday’s results will affect the thinking of a group of moderate Senate Democrats who are looking for an end to the shutdown, and who have been negotiating with Republicans on a potential deal to reopen the government that would include a future Senate vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies. Democratic senators huddled for over two hours during a tense meeting behind closed doors earlier on Tuesday, with no consensus on how to proceed. But it’s clear that some of them are searching for a way out.

“I think we’re closer to the end of this than we are to the beginning,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) told reporters. “This thing can’t go on forever.”

Republicans had hoped that Democrats would be more willing to end the shutdown after Tuesday’s elections. But Democrats waving the white flag now without getting an extension of the Obamacare subsidies could put them in an awkward spot since voters just sent a message they’d like a check on President Donald Trump and his policies.

“The lesson here for Democrats in Congress is that voters are clamoring for an actual opposition party that will fight for our democracy and against MAGA extremism in tangible ways that deliver relief for families from Republicans’ cruel policies,” Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, said in a statement to HuffPost.

“This was a clear rebuke of Republicans putting billionaires over families and co-signing Trump’s chaos that has cut off essential services and sabotaged our economy. Democrats in the Senate must continue to oppose any budget that fails to stop healthcare price hikes and Trump’s chaos,” she added.

Trump, meanwhile, seemed to imply the government shutdown was hurting his party.

“‘TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,’ according to Pollsters,” he wrote in a post on his social media website Truth Social.