Voters Sound Off On Dems After ‘Schumer Shutdown’
New focus-group findings from Engagious/Sago reveal that swing voters in the crucial battleground of Georgia are growing increasingly frustrated with Democrats—particularly after the party dragged out the recent federal government shutdown for 41 days, only to abandon the fight without winning a single meaningful concession on rising health insurance premiums.
Axios, which observed the focus groups, reported that the strategy appears to have backfired among the very voters Democrats claim to represent.
Even some participants who backed President Donald J. Trump last November said they still expect Democrats to champion affordability in health care and defend programs benefiting low-income families. But in this week’s sessions, seven of the thirteen Biden-to-Trump swing voters said Democrats came out of the shutdown looking worse than Republicans. Only two claimed the GOP looked worse, and four blamed both parties equally.
“They gave in to the Republicans,” said Trilya M., 53, of Loganville. “They did not stand their ground with them, and now it’s going to affect the people that [have] the Affordable Care Act.”
“It was for what?” added Christine L., 54, of Peachtree City. “It really does make them look bad.”
Another voter, Elijah T., 33, of Conyers, criticized Democrats’ self-styled brand of compassion.
“They always project to be a party of the people who they care about, the disenfranchised, the people who are in poverty … but their actions contradict it, they don’t really care.”
Brian B., 61, of Norcross, was even more blunt.
“Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries beat the heck out of this and wasted 41 days dragging their feet before eight Democrats finally decided enough is enough.”
Rich Thau, president of Engagious and moderator of the focus groups, summarized the sentiment:
“Democrats gave swing voters — who already hold the party in profoundly low esteem — yet another reason to mistrust them.”
Despite frustrations about Washington’s broader dysfunction, eight of the thirteen participants said they still approve of the administration’s performance since President Trump returned to office in January. The remaining five cited inflation, rising food prices, job-market uncertainty, aggressive immigration enforcement, and concerns that the administration lacks a sufficiently sober approach to governing—an observation Axios highlighted.
The voters selected for the panel represent a politically diverse cross-section: nine independents, three Republicans, and one Democrat. All supported Joe Biden in 2020 before flipping to Trump in 2024. While not statistically representative, the discussions offer a revealing look at how key swing voters are interpreting the current political landscape.
Most participants—eleven of the thirteen—were aware of Democrats’ recent off-year election successes in deep-blue strongholds such as Virginia, New Jersey, California, and New York City.
When asked what Republicans should learn from these losses, the advice varied: spend more aggressively against Democrats, appeal more to the middle, “don’t rest on your laurels,” and “get a better stance on what’s going on and what people want to have done.”
Their advice for Democrats was equally candid: “Don’t go too woke” and “follow through with your promises.” One participant cautioned against reading too much into localized races, noting that “midterms are never determined by these special elections.”
An overwhelming ten of the thirteen voters said they would support a constitutional amendment imposing an upper age limit on future U.S. presidents, typically setting the cutoff between 65 and 75 years old.
These concerns echo a recent New York Post editorial that skewered Democratic leaders for extending the shutdown purely to appease progressive activists rather than achieve anything substantive.
The editorial opened with a direct rebuke:
“Democrats pointlessly kept the government shut down for 41 days (and still counting!), purely to satisfy their squalling left flank’s need to do something to ‘resist’ President Donald Trump.”
The Post noted that Democrats suddenly insisted the shutdown was about preserving expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies—despite the fact that they were the ones who set the expiration date in 2021.
As the editorial concluded:
“Yet the true reason was simply that Democratic grassroots activists and donors are furious that they can’t get their way in Washington, and insisted that their congresscritters express their rage.”
The focus groups suggest that this strategy is alienating the very swing voters Democrats will need in 2026 — and providing President Trump and Republicans an unexpected political advantage as the shutdown saga comes to a close.