CNN Data Guru: Schumer Shutdown May Be Making Republicans More Popular

As expected — more or less — Senate Democrats again refused to end the filibuster on the clean continuing resolution. The cloture vote has remained roughly the same, still eight votes short of allowing a floor vote to reopen the government. 

BREAKING: Senate Democrats block a clean CR from Republicans for the 13th time, refusing to fund troops and reopen the government. #GovernmentShutdown #USPolitics pic.twitter.com/nCsHaHejbh

— Salem News Channel (@WatchSalemNews) October 28, 2025

So at the moment, nothing has changed — in the Senate. Yesterday’s demand from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to pass the clean CR still hasn’t quite landed, although Dick Durbin did say that it would likely have an impact on their strategy. 

What may have a larger impact on the Schumer Shutdown strategy is how much may be changing elsewhere, and how. CNN’s Harry Enten returned like Jeremiah outside of the temple again this morning to warn Democrats that the polling on the shutdown has boosted one party’s prospects for the midterms. And that party is not the Democrats:

WATCH: The Schumer Shutdown has backfired so badly that it has CNN freaking out over recent poll numbers. pic.twitter.com/QBY5xysPLn

— The Western Journal (@WesternJournalX) October 28, 2025

Enten is looking at a specific poll in this data, not polling aggregates, so bear that in mind. With that said, the aggregates are not looking favorable for Democrats, either. The generic ballot average today is D+2.4, a full point lower than in September, and that is largely influenced by the recent updates from Dem-friendly pollsters such as YouGov, Morning Consult, and especiallty an outlier D+9 from Quinnipiac. Trump’s average job approval rating gap is -7, slightly larger than last month but hardly unusual for Trump — and way better than in his first term. 

More to the point, Democrats are slightly more than 24 points underwater on favorability in RCP’s aggregation (34.7/59). Republicans are much better situated at 41/5/53.5, a gap of -12, half that of Democrats. The direction-of-country aggregate has improved vastly over last year, although it has eroded somewhat over the summer — but it has not changed at all over the last 30 days. 

What does all this mean? Enten believes that the demo shifts are solidifying for the GOP in the midterms (transcript from Mediaite). And if that’s the case, Republicans and Trump have no reason to cut a deal to end the shutdown:

BERMAN: Now we say their position is getting better, with whom?

ENTEN: Yeah, okay, with whom? So I think it’s two groups that it’s so important to keep an eye on. All right, change in the Republican Congress’s net approval rating versus pre-shutdown. It’s rallying the base for sure. Look at this, the net approval rating up 12 points versus pre-shutdown. But it’s not just with the base, it’s also with the middle of the electorate. Look at this among independents, it’s up eight points as well! So we’ve got a situation here where Republicans with the shutdown are actually rallying their base, but it’s also something that’s not hurting them with the folks in the middle. If anything it’s helping them with folks in the middle, and this is the type of math that if you’re Republicans you like to see, right? Because something could rally the base but alienate those in the middle, or something could rally those in the middle, but alienate the base. But the truth is we’re not seeing that. What we’re seeing is the Republican brand has actually gotten better among independents and it’s also gotten better among Republicans as well that Republican brand when it comes to those in Congress. So again, what’s what’s the electoral reason that Republicans would given at this point?

As before, Enten focuses on the generic ballot to prophesy disaster ahead for Dems:

ENTEN: Yeah, so, I mea  look, the generic Congressional ballot, which traditionally Democrats have done really well on, and if you look at this point back when Trump was president the first time around, Democrats were up 11 points. Look at where it is now. Democrats are ahead, but they’re actually only up three points. This is, in fact, the worst position Democrats have been in on a generic ballot at this time in a midterm when there was a Republican president in the last 20 years. And this is no different from pre-shutdown. So Republicans aren’t losing on this metric either. They’ve become more popular, and they’re in a pretty good position for them historically when it comes to the generic congressional ballot.

It may be overstating the data to claim that Republicans are become more popular, but clearly Democrats are becoming less popular as the Schumer Shutdown continues. And if goes on for more than another day or two, they are about to get a lot less popular within their own constituencies

Thune on shutdown:: This is going to get worse as the week goes on, as time goes on. You’ve already seen impacts. Federal workers missed their first paycheck last Friday. ATC employees are gonna miss their paycheck today. If by the end of the week this isn’t over 30, 40 million…

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 28, 2025

If by the end of the week this isn’t over 30, 40 million Americans, we’re not going to have food assistance

I suspect that Democrats right now are strategizing on which members of the Senate caucus will vote to end the filibuster while protecting others. Schumer won’t signal retreat publicly, but he’ll arrange an end to this soon, given the optics. This has been an embarrassing exercise, but it’s about to become a catastrophic mistake. Perhaps this time, everyone will learn the proper War Games lesson on shutdowns: “The only winning move is not to play.”

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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