Trump Miscalculated. Democrats Still Blinked First.

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Just over two weeks ago, Democrats delivered one of their strongest off-year electoral performances in a decade. In the middle of the longest government shutdown in modern history, they swept major contests across the country and entered the funding standoff with unmistakable momentum. Then, in a move that stunned even their own supporters, they abandoned the demand they had spent weeks insisting was non-negotiable: extending Affordable Care Act subsidies for more than twenty-four million Americans. The political whiplash was immediate. A party that had just demonstrated real electoral authority suddenly behaved as though it had none at all.

The election results underscored the advantage Democrats carried into the standoff. In the race for New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani defeated Trump-endorsed Andrew Cuomo in one off one of the largest shocks in modern political history. In New Jersey, Mikkie Sherrill shook off tightening polls to comfortably beat her Republican opponent Jack Ciaterrelli. Virginia delivered the most pointed rebuke of the administration. In a state with the 5th-highest share of federal jobs and the 2nd-highest share of federal contract dollars per capita, Abigail Spanberger achieved a 15-point victory over her Republican opponent Winsome Earle Sears. Down-ballot, Democrats retained three crucial Pennsylvania Supreme Court seats, California voters adopted Proposition 50, and even in deep Red Mississippi Democrats broke a 6-year-long Republican supermajority in the state senate.  

In the wake of such a sweeping set of election results, the expectation in Washington was that Democrats would hold their line. They had made their position explicit: no Republican funding bill without an extension of Obamacare subsidies for more than twenty-four million Americans. Trump’s approval rating had fallen to a second-term low of 37%, and Senate Republicans were splintering under pressure from the White House to abolish the filibuster to end the shutdown.

Then, on 9 November, the party retreated. Eight moderate Senate Democrats coalesced around a proposal that reversed the Trump administration’s layoffs of federal government employees and secured a December vote on the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Whilst the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did not personally vote for the measure, his whip and deputy, Dick Durbin, backed the agreement, demonstrating clear tacit approval from the party’s leadership. Such was the expected furore, that Senate Democratic leadership carefully ensured eight senators who did not face re-election in 2026 voted for the measure. 

The intra-party backlash was immediate. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna made an excoriating critique, arguing Democrats “had Trump against the ropes” and called on Schumer to resign as Senate Democratic leader for “political malpractice”. The criticism only grew louder. Host of the Daily Show, Jon Stewart,  “couldn’t f****ing believe” what he called a “world-class collapse” by Democrats, a reaction that captured the widespread disbelief across the party. That sentiment echoed into primetime, where Rachel Maddow joked to viewers Democrats had “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory”, a framing that rapidly gained traction online. From the party's intellectual wing, Robert Reich, the economist and former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, argued the Democratic collapse demonstrated a deeper “fundamental asymmetry” at the core of American politics: “Democrats are undisciplined. Republicans are regimented.” 

Defenders of the compromise insist the shutdown had reached an untenable point. At 43 days, it was already the longest in US history. More than one million federal employees missed their paychecks. Forty-two million families experienced disrupted SNAP benefits. Air traffic chaos saw heavy delays with the Federal Aviation Commission (FAA) cutting domestic flights by 10% in the frenzied lead up to Thanksgiving. 

Supporters also point to a strategic gain. Reopening the government compelled Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to swear in Adelita Grijalva, an Arizonan Democratic representative, who he had avoided swearing in for 7 weeks and who made up the 218th vote in the discharge petition for the Jeffery Epstein files. Congress has since passed the bill, forcing Trump to abruptly reverse his position and support releasing the documents, reinforcing the claim that Democrats extracted at least one tangible concession.

However, the public response has cut sharply in the opposite direction. A recent CBS YouGov poll found some 55% of the general population viewed Republicans as winning the shutdown compared to just 6% for Democrats. Even more striking is the internal mood with both parties; 55% of Democratic voters felt the party compromised too hard, with ‘frustrated’ and ‘dissatisfied’ their top answers in response to how they felt about the shutdown, compared to the Republicans, who reported feeling ‘relieved’ and ‘satisfied’. 

The broader risk for Democrats is not confined to a single shutdown or a single concession. It is the cumulative perception that the party cannot translate electoral strength into governing leverage. They entered November with momentum, public sympathy, and a structurally advantageous negotiating position. They exit with an exposed leadership, a disillusioned base and an opponent newly convinced that Democrats can be pressured into retreat even under favourable conditions. As the 2026 cycle begins to take shape, the question is no longer whether Democrats can win elections. It is whether they can govern with the ferocity that their own voters now expect, disrupting a cycle of timidity that is rapidly hardening into how the party is understood by the American electorate.