Senate Democrats are divided over whether Republicans have offered enough to reach a deal to end the government shutdown this week.
Several centrist Democrats are signaling to their Republican colleagues that an agreement could be reached in the next few days.
But other Senate Democrats warn that reopening the government without a real concession from President Trump on extending the expiring health insurance premium subsidies — or at least a stronger gesture of good faith from the president — would be a big mistake.
Democrats are getting closer with Republicans on an agreement to put the regular appropriations process back on track, a strong Democratic priority, but the two sides haven’t made much progress on rising health care costs, the biggest sticking point.
Senate Republican negotiators said Monday that the talks could be on the cusp of reaching a deal, but some centrist Democrats warn that Trump’s failure to show serious interest in the health care issue is raising a red flag.
“I do believe we are finally making progress. It’s too soon to declare that this nightmare of a shutdown is over but I’m very cautiously hopeful that it will be resolved by the end of this week,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters as she left the Capitol Monday evening.
“There’s more specificity in what’s being sought and in addition I get the impression that for some Democrats waiting until after [Tuesday’s] election is an issue,” she said.
She said Democrats are facing “the reality of people losing food stamps toward the middle of the month and of women with infants not being able to get money from the WIC program and low-income individuals losing access to vital heating assistance.”
Collins said she wants the Senate to advance a new stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), that would fund the government through Dec. 19, an acknowledgement that the end-date of the House-passed CR, Nov. 21, is now less than three weeks away. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday also indicated he was looking for a longer timeframe for a CR, likely into January.
Senate Republicans need at least eight votes to reopen the government. So far they’ve only had support from three members of the Democratic caucus: Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), a key player in the talks among moderate Democrats to reopen the government, said the discussions are making more progress than a few days ago, and highlighted bipartisan support on the Senate Appropriations Committee for advancing the 2026 spending bills.
“We’re trying to figure out a way to open the government and accomplish the things we want to accomplish. We’re going to keep doing that,” he said. “I’d say there’s progress being made. I’ll leave it at that.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a prominent centrist who is in the middle of the talks, however, said Trump hasn’t done enough to show he’s serious about health care to finalize a deal to reopen the government.
Asked whether flight delays across the country mean it’s time to open the government, Kelley indicated that Democrats would support a funding bill “at the time the president gets engaged and we have a real negotiation about what to do to deal with these rising costs.”
“I’m seeing things across the country from people I went to high school with [who] aren’t going to be able to afford their health care,” he said.
Kelly said he was “surprised” that Trump didn’t seem more attuned to the problem of rising health care costs in Republican- and Democratic-led states, alike.
“He didn’t seem to care all that much about it,” he said of Trump’s interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” which aired Sunday night.
He said Trump “absolutely” needs to do more to reach a deal this week, adding he should be “talking to us.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned Monday that Democratic colleagues should not vote to reopen the government without a real win on keep health insurance premiums in check.
Murphy, who returned to Washington late Monday afternoon after spending the day in Miami listening to voters fears about rising health care costs, warned that “people are going to die” unless Democrats push Republicans to do something significant on health care costs.
“Shutdowns I hurt but the pain that I just heard in Florida is going to be worse than anything happening with the shutdown. Because when those premiums go up by 100 to 200 percent, those people’s lives are ruined. People will die,” he said. “My sense is people out there want us to fight.”
An NBC poll released Monday showed that 52 percent of registered voters nationwide think Trump and congressional Republicans are more to blame for the 35-day shutdown while 42 percent say that Democrats are more to blame.
The survey also found that voters prefer Democrats over Republicans in the battle for control of Congress by 8 points — 50 percent to 42 percent — the largest lead on the generic ballot since 2018, which bolsters Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s (N.Y.) argument that shutting down the government over rising health care costs is a political winner.
Schumer on Monday blasted Trump for not acknowledging the heavy financial burdens put on millions of Americans because of rising health care costs, which will only rise after enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act expire.
“If you watched Donald Trump this weekend on 60 Minutes, you saw a president utterly dismissive of the pain his policies have caused working people,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Trump hasn’t made the path to a deal to reopen government any easier by calling on Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster, a long-held Senate tradition, to get around Democratic opposition to a clean House-passed continuing resolution.
And the president hasn’t budged from his refusal to negotiate any concessions on expiring health insurance premium subsidies, declaring on CBS Sunday that he “won’t be extorted.”
Democrats have more breathing room to negotiation a deal to reopen the government after the Trump administration told a judge Monday that it use some contingency funding to pay 50 percent of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits during the shutdown.
Another key event this week will be Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, where the Democratic candidates are leading. Some Senate Democrats think they can declare a political victory if their party carries both states by claiming they successfully highlighted Republican opposition to extending health care benefits.
But Democrats will have little else to point to as gains from the shutdown, other than what Thune has offered for several weeks, a vote on a bill to extend the enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and a “process” for negotiating longer-term healthcare reform with Trump and GOP leaders in Congress.
Murphy, a potential candidate for president in 2028, said if Democrats do as well as they expect in the New Jersey and Virginia elections Tuesday, it would be a sign to dig in and fight hard.
“I think it’s pretty clear, and I think [Tuesday’s] results may confirm this, the American people want us to fight for them,” he said.
