These Democrats May Hold the Key to Ending the Shutdown

Since the government shutdown began a week ago, Senate Republicans have repeatedly emphasized that only a handful of Democrats need to cross party lines and join them in passing a stopgap spending bill aimed at reopening the government.

So far, not a single Democrat has changed their position, instead sticking to the party’s insistence that Republicans first negotiate the extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expire at the end of the year.

Republicans, who control 53 votes in the Senate, would need eight senators across the aisle to vote in favor of their bill to extend funding through Nov. 21. Two Democrats, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, as well as Sen. Angus King, a party-aligned independent from Maine, supported the GOP plan in the hours before the shutdown deadline. But Republicans have made no further progress toward reaching the magic number.

With no formal bipartisan negotiations underway, senators have voted a half-dozen times, most recently Wednesday, to block competing bills that would extend government funding.

The successive votes underscored how stubborn both parties are in their positions and suggested that, contrary to Republicans’ initial expectations, Democrats who believe they have the upper hand in the shutdown fight are not fracturing — at least not yet.

Yet the longer the standoff continues, the more attention is focused on the handful of Democrats who could reach a deal to reopen the government.