When blame tilts toward the party in power, reopening the government can be a low‑cost, high‑return vote. When a shutdown drags on, the political incentives for some Democrats to vote with Republicans are straightforward: the public tends to fault the side seen as running the government or driving the negotiation—so ending the impasse rarely carries heavy political risk for the minority party. In the current 2025 shutdown, a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos survey found that mo
