AP-NORC poll: 6 in 10 blame Republicans for record 43-day shutdown

The federal government shut down at midnight on October 1, 2025, after Congress failed to pass a continuing resolution before the start of the new fiscal year. The standoff turned on one policy dispute: Democrats refused to vote for any funding bill that excluded an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, set to expire in November 2025. Republicans, who controlled both chambers, insisted on passing a clean continuing resolution first and negotiating the subsidies separately. Senate Democrats blocked the votes needed to advance funding legislation, and no deal emerged.

The enhanced subsidies were first enacted in the American Rescue Plan of 2021 and extended through 2025 in the Inflation Reduction Act. They lowered premiums for roughly 24 million Americans who buy coverage on ACA marketplaces, cutting average annual costs by around $700 per person. The Congressional Budget Office estimated 3.8 to 4.7 million people would lose coverage by 2026 if the subsidies expired.

The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polled 1,289 adults from October 9 through 13, 2025, using its probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel. The survey carried a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. Results published October 16 found roughly 60 percent of Americans said President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress bear a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility for the shutdown. About 54 percent said the same of Democrats in Congress. Approximately half of respondents said Trump personally bears a great deal of responsibility, the highest level offered and higher than the share who said the same of either party.

At least three-quarters of Americans said each actor, Trump, Republicans in Congress, and Democrats, deserves at least moderate blame. Although the central dispute involved ACA health care subsidies, 42 percent of adults surveyed had no opinion on whether to extend the enhanced marketplace tax credits.

The shutdown ended November 12, 2025, when the House passed a Senate-approved continuing resolution reopening the government. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson negotiated the deal; Senate Democrats accepted a clean CR after holding out for 43 days. The bill did not include the ACA enhanced subsidy extension. At 43 days, the shutdown became the longest full government shutdown in U.S. history, surpassing the previous record of 35 days set in the December 2018 to January 2019 shutdown. With the subsidies excluded, approximately 24 million ACA marketplace enrollees faced higher premiums when the enhanced credits expired.

The 2025 shutdown wasn't the first time a congressional leader used a funding standoff to demand a policy concession, or failed. Speaker Newt Gingrich shut down the government twice in fall 1995 and winter 1996, demanding that President Clinton accept Republican budget cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. The first shutdown lasted five days (November 14-19, 1995); the second lasted 21 days (December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996), then the record for the longest U.S. government shutdown.

Clinton refused. Opinion polls showed voters blamed Republicans by large margins. After 21 days, Republicans accepted Clinton's budget without the cuts they demanded. The 1995-96 shutdowns established the shutdown-as-leverage template both parties have used since: threaten to close the government over a policy demand, then hope the other side blinks first. They also fixed the pattern that followed: the side seen as triggering a shutdown absorbs the larger blame.

The ACA marketplace subsidy fight turned on a structural feature called the subsidy cliff. Before 2021, Americans earning more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, roughly $55,000 for a single person, received no ACA marketplace subsidies at all. The American Rescue Plan temporarily removed that income ceiling, and the Inflation Reduction Act extended the change through 2025. The reform brought millions of middle-income earners into the marketplace who had previously found coverage unaffordable.

In 2025, 24.3 million Americans enrolled in ACA marketplace plans, more than double the 11.4 million who enrolled in 2020. For subsidized enrollees, enhanced credits reduced average annual premiums to $888. KFF analysis found premiums would more than double to an average of $1,904 per year if the enhanced credits expired.

Senate Democrats used the chamber's 60-vote cloture rule to block every continuing resolution that excluded the ACA subsidy extension. To bring a bill to the Senate floor for a final vote, the majority must first pass a procedural motion called cloture, which ends debate. Cloture requires 60 of 100 senators. With Republicans holding 53 seats and Democrats 47, Senate Democrats could block any cloture motion by holding their caucus together.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer kept all 47 Senate Democrats unified against the CR for six weeks. The 60-vote threshold, which applies to virtually all substantive Senate legislation, gave the minority the power to deny the majority the votes it needed to pass a clean funding bill. The threshold isn't in the Constitution; it's the Senate's own procedural rule, modified over decades.

The 43-day shutdown furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers or required them to report without pay. Air traffic controllers, TSA screeners, Border Patrol agents, and other workers deemed essential continued working without paychecks. Workers classified as non-essential stayed home. National parks closed, federal permit processing halted, and federal court operations scaled back. The shutdown also suspended releases of federal economic statistics including employment and inflation reports.

Congress has passed legislation in recent shutdowns ensuring federal employees receive back pay once funding resumes. Government contractors who maintain federal buildings and provide support services aren't covered by those guarantees. Workers in both categories faced financial pressure during the record-length 43-day closure.