Democrats are being blamed more for this shutdown than any shutdown in the past 30 years.

Of course, the public still reflexively blames Republicans more, but what else is new?

“Given those factors, I think the default for people is that it’s a Republican effort in terms of who gets the blame. … We’ve had 30 years of shutdowns, and this is the highest number of blaming Democrats. So both things can be true at the same time,” McInturff said. (link)

It can also be that two other things are true at the same time. More people are blaming the GOP for the shutdown while the shutdown itself might be hurting Democrats more at the end of the day. While that seems counterintuitive, it can make sense. If I asked which of two candidates dresses better, the answer to that question might be completely irrelevant to whom the respondent might be voting for. Maybe it doesn't really matter who dresses better when it comes to winning a campaign. Likewise, perhaps getting more people to blame Republicans for the shutdown isn't going to help win the next election.

I would offer this. Considering the facts are that Democrats are voting to not reopen the government, those who still blame the Republicans are probably hopelessly lost as it pertains to thinking for themselves. They are either not understanding how government shutdowns work, they do not understand how budgets work, or they are simply listening to talking points. Every single shutdown over the past 35 years has either been averted or ended with a continuing resolution. Period. Full stop. The Party who is refusing to pass a continuing resolution are the Democrats. They want "this" shutdown to be different from every other shutdown in the past 35 years. But is there really anything that different?

I will also point out that almost none of the polling I have seen has actually "asked" anyone whether or not they would like to see a clean continuing resolution passed in order to reopen the government. It's almost as if they do not want to ask the simplest of questions because doing so would expose the fallacy that Republicans are to blame. There were two polls that talked about a continuing resolution. There was a Harvard Harris poll suggesting that 65% believe that Democrats should vote to pass a CCR while a YouGov polls suggested that more people want a CR that "adds" things (which of course not actually the point of passing the continuing resolution). This suggestion (even if it is popular with YouGov respondents) is effectively "changing the rules" of our government shutdowns to accommodate the "demands" of one Party over the other. In this case the Party that was voted out of power.

Perhaps it is time for the GOP to take a different strategy. Find something extremely popular with the public that Democrats hate (say something about cutting out all social spending on issues like transgenderism, DEI, and any forms of censorship) in exchange for a short-term funding (and possible phase out) of the expiring Covid subsidies. They would be offering an olive branch and providing the Democrats with a new option. If they refuse to either pass a clean CR or pass one that provides for priorities of both Parties, then it would seem logical that their popularity on the issue further diminishes. Either way, I don't see the Democrats getting out of this with the win they are hoping for. The polling is just not good enough for them overall to force anyone's hand.