As shutdown drags on, US voters see blame game threatening Democrats and Republicans

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By Nathan Layne

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (Reuters) -Betty Snellenberg and Grace Cook stood on opposite sides of the walkway into the early voting center in Virginia Beach – one promoting the Democratic ticket for the November 4 statewide election, the other distributing pamphlets for the Republican nominees.

Flanking the entrance, the two women embodied the country’s partisan split as a days-old government shutdown threatened to cleave the political left and right further apart, with each side blaming the other for the paralysis in Washington.

Yet Snellenberg and Cook shared a common concern: their parties risk losing the messaging war if the shutdown goes on for weeks or months, especially in an area of their state so dependent on civil service and military jobs. Tens of thousands of workers have been furloughed or are working without pay.

A long shutdown could severely damage the economy of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, home to multiple military installations, including the world’s largest naval base in Norfolk and a base for fighter jets in Virginia Beach.

Snellenberg, an 84-year-old Democrat, said she was worried that in a prolonged shutdown voters would eventually come to care more about the broader economic toll than the extension of healthcare subsidies that are at the core of Democrats’ demands.

“I don’t want the Dems to back down because it shows weakness,” said Snellenberg, who worked at a nearby naval intelligence center prior to retirement. “But it’s going to come back and bite us if it goes on longer than a month.”

Cook, Snellenberg’s Republican counterpart, said she was unsure if the shutdown would prove to be a critical factor in the off-year election’s headline race for governor between Democratic former Representative Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.

But she worried a protracted shutdown could boomerang on Republicans heading into the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats are seeking to oust the Republican incumbent in a competitive congressional seat that includes the city of Virginia Beach in their bid to retake control of the House of Representatives. 

“It might hurt us in the midterms,” said Cook, 61, a former Department of Defense employee who was wearing a T-shirt bearing the word “Freedom” in a tribute to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “In this area – only because we’re a lot of Navy and a lot of DOD and federal jobs.”

About 335,000 civilian employees at the Defense Department – nearly half its workforce – were slated for furlough under its shutdown plan.

Public opinion surveys echo Snellenberg and Cook’s shared anxieties: that both parties stand to lose support, though more people seem ready, at least for now, to fault President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, which controls both chambers of Congress.

A poll by Marist, PBS News and NPR conducted in late September prior to the shutdown found that 31% of respondents would blame both sides equally, while 38% said they would hold Republicans culpable and 27% said they’d blame Democrats.

The shutdown is already factoring into a key state-level November 4 race, with incumbent Democrat Michael Feggans last week releasing a 30-second ad highlighting the potential economic damage to his lower house district in Virginia Beach.

“Someone who’s always spoken about the art of the deal is going on another shutdown,” Feggans, referring to Trump and his self-branding as a deal-maker, said in an interview. “We didn’t have any government shutdowns during the Biden administration.”

Tim Anderson, his Republican opponent, said he believes Democrats, who have the votes to block a stopgap funding bill in the U.S. Senate, will be seen by most Americans as the intransigent party at the outset of the shutdown.

“But if this continues for a while, voters will start looking at the president as the responsible entity in the shutdown,” Anderson told Reuters, adding that he could see an ongoing shutdown hurting his chances on November 4. “The longer this goes, the worse it’s going to hurt Republicans.”

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

The shutdown, which entered its fifth day on Sunday, has suspended scientific research, financial oversight, economic data reports, and a wide range of other activities. With some exceptions, most federal employees will not be paid until a deal to reopen the government is made.

Nearly 60,000 people in the Hampton Roads area work for the federal government, while another 85,000 in the area are active duty military, according to Bob McNab, chair of the economics department at Old Dominion University. Because of a pullback in their spending, the region could lose $1 billion a month in economic activity during a sustained shutdown, McNab said.

In interviews with more than two dozen voters, federal employees and elected officials in Virginia Beach and the nearby city of Chesapeake on Thursday, nearly all expressed worries about the financial impact on themselves or their loved ones.

But several Republicans told Reuters that they wanted Trump to hold his ground, even if it meant economic pain for the region, arguing that Democrats were wrong as a matter of principle for using their leverage to block the proposed short-term spending bill.

Democrats say they do not trust Republicans to honor any agreement that would first reopen the government and then tackle the healthcare subsidies, which were passed as part of a 2021 Democratic COVID relief package and now help 24 million Americans pay for coverage.

Jan Callaway, a Republican poll watcher, said depending on how Trump went about it she could support him using the shutdown to fire more civil servants, as he has threatened to do, even with 300,000 already set to be pushed out by the end of 2025.

“I’m concerned if it goes on for a long time, but I think the Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot,” Callaway, 69, said. “I trust Trump … he’s the king of making deals.”

Two Democratic-leaning independents told Reuters that they were worried that Republicans were winning the messaging battle, gaining traction by repeatedly making the false claim that the Democratic spending proposal would extend health coverage to people who are in the country illegally.

“They have not done a very good job in selling the truth,” said Stuart, who would only give her first name, referring to leaders of the Democratic Party. “It seems to me, unfortunately, that the Republicans have the larger megaphone.”

Much like their parties, Snellenberg and Cook have not crossed the aisle, or in their case the walkway, to discuss the shutdown. Volunteers for both parties were mostly keeping to themselves, when Reuters visited this week.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Virginia Beach, editing by Ross Colvin and Diane Craft)