These Democrats Could Hold the Key to Ending the Shutdown

[Celerity]

As the federal closure slides into a second week, Republicans are working to peel off five more Democratic senators to join them in voting to reopen the government.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/us/politics/key-democrats-ending-shutdown.html

https://archive.ph/UZ5XG

Since the government shutdown began one week ago, Senate Republicans have repeatedly noted that only a handful of Democrats need to cross party lines and join them in pushing through a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government. So far, not a single Democrat has changed positions, instead sticking with the party’s insistence that Republicans first negotiate to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies slated to expire at the end of the year.

Republicans, who control 53 votes in the Senate, would need eight senators from across the aisle to vote for their bill to extend funding through Nov. 21. Two Democrats, Senators Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, as well as Senator Angus King, the Maine independent aligned with the party, backed the G.O.P. plan in the hours before the shutdown deadline. But Republicans have made no further headway toward hitting the magic number.

With no formal bipartisan talks underway, senators have voted a half-dozen times, most recently on Wednesday, to block competing bills that would extend government funding. The successive votes have underscored how dug in both parties are in their positions, and suggested that, contrary to Republicans’ initial expectations, Democrats who believe they have the upper hand in the shutdown fight are not fracturing — at least not yet.

Still, the longer the impasse drags on, the more intense the focus becomes on the handful of Democrats who could cut a deal to reopen the government. They include moderates who regularly seek bipartisan deals, senators facing potentially tough re-election races, and those whose imminent retirements mean they are less sensitive to potential political blowback. Here is a look at the Democratic senators to watch, and why they are regarded as top targets in any shutdown compromise.

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