With five days until a government shutdown, Democratic leaders find themselves in a familiar position: whipping against a spending bill.
“House Democrats will not be complicit in the Republican effort to hurt the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Monday.
The legislation — a 99-page measure that makes hundreds of spending adjustments and slashes $8 billion in funding — is a nonstarter for Democrats. They had hoped that months of negotiations would produce a compromise spending package.
The compromise never materialized.
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By stirring up opposition to the GOP’s last-minute funding proposal, Democrats are betting that Republicans can’t pass the legislation alone and hope Republicans would then be forced to consider another short-term bill, giving appropriators even more time to reach a larger deal.
But whether Democrats can actually remain opposed to the GOP legislation — in the House and in the Senate — is an early test of their party’s ability to stay together.
In the House, where Republicans could still pass the funding bill even if all Democrats vote no, Jeffries’ ability to corral his caucus will still have a major say over the ultimate fate of the bill.
Republicans aren’t counting on many, if any, Democratic votes to help them get the measure over the line. But a healthy bipartisan contingent in the House would aid the GOP’s argument in the Senate, where a handful of Democrats will be needed to overcome the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster.
Democratic votes in the House might also come in handy for passage. Rep. Thomas Massie — the GOP’s most dissenting lone dissenter — said Sunday night that, to vote yes, he would need a lobotomy.
“It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day,” Massie said of GOP leadership’s promise to cut spending later.
Massie is currently joined by Rep. Tim Burchett in opposing the bill, though Burchett has recently flip-flopped on major legislation at the last minute. Leaders are banking on him folding, as they can only afford to lose one vote if all Democrats show up and remain opposed. (The current House majority is 218 Republicans to 214 Democrats.)
Meanwhile, a single Democratic defection would give Republicans some sorely needed wiggle room, depending on absences. (Rep. Raúl Grijalva hasn’t voted for months and it’s unclear whether he’d reappear to vote against the funding measure. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, who’s been in her home state after giving birth to her son, has returned to Washington and will vote no.)
So far, Jeffries’ caucus appears to be backing him up.
Vulnerable Democrats are the most natural bedfellows for Republicans, especially moderate members of the Blue Dog Coalition like Reps. Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who both declined on Monday to say how they’d vote on the bill. But a person familiar with their thinking told NOTUS that House Republicans should not expect any Democratic votes, even from moderates.
Blue Dog members Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez told NOTUS they were firmly against the legislation and don’t anticipate any blowback if the government shuts down.
“If you cut billions of dollars from the VA, it’s an easy no,” Gonzalez told NOTUS. “We have 40,000 veterans that we need to take care of that they want to defund. And we have a lot of veterans that rely on the VA in South Texas. The community understands that we need to take care of our veterans.”
A few moderate Democrats said they hadn’t yet decided on how to vote. Rep. Don Davis, who narrowly won his district, told NOTUS he’s “pouring through” the bill. Rep. Josh Riley, a freshman Democrat who flipped his district in November, also said he was still making a decision.
“Of course, I’m always concerned about a shutdown, but at the end of the day, I’ve got to look at what’s good for my constituents, and that’s ultimately the way I make the decision,” Riley told NOTUS.
But other centrist Democratic leaders are lining up behind Jeffries. Rep. Brad Schneider, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, told NOTUS last week — when Republicans were still branding their unreleased spending bill as a “clean CR” — that the GOP would have to negotiate with Democratic leadership if they wanted buy-in from across the aisle.
By Monday, Schneider told reporters, “It’s an easy no.”
“It gives unlimited responsibility for what Congress should be doing to the Trump administration,” he said. “And it hurts our veterans, our seniors, our students, you can run down the list.”
Even outspoken Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz — who’s been known to flex his Republican bona fides in Florida — came out aggressively against the bill.
“We want to send a message to the Senate,” he said Monday night. “And make no mistake about it. This is what Republicans would do. They would vote no.”
But for all the tough talk now, Republicans appear willing to call Democrats’ bluff.
After all, when Elon Musk forced Republicans to renege on a carefully negotiated spending deal with Democrats, Jeffries insisted that his caucus would sooner watch government funding expire before they settle for less.
Ultimately, however, Democrats caved, with Jeffries handing Speaker Mike Johnson his party’s unanimous support for a three-month continuing resolution.
Of course, if Johnson is able to pass his spending bill with Republicans alone — an increasingly likely prospect, as more hard-line conservatives come out in support — House Democrats become a far less relevant factor in the shutdown calculus than their Senate counterparts.
Unlike in the House where the GOP technically controls enough votes to pass the bill alone, Republicans need a handful of Senate Democrats to vote with them to reach the upper chambers’ 60-vote threshold.
If the House can pass their spending bill Tuesday, Johnson appears likely to send lawmakers home in an attempt to jam the Senate. It’s a dynamic that would mean anything short of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer delivering eight Senate Democratic votes would involve the messy business of House lawmakers booking flights back to Washington as the clock ticks toward shutdown-o-clock.
The situation leaves Schumer with the awkward job of balancing Democratic disdain for the legislation and acknowledging that, without some Senate Democratic votes, funding would almost certainly expire.
Schumer’s caucus toed that line on Monday, though Sen. Cory Booker said no formal decisions were made in a Senate Democratic leadership meeting that same evening.
Several key Democrats have already declared their opposition to the spending bill. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine both announced they would vote against the legislation.
Kaine even called himself a “Hell no!” on X Monday morning. And when approached by reporters hours later on whether he had changed his mind, Kaine had a simple message: “Guys, give me a fucking break.”
But notably, several senators stopped short of saying they’d vote against the House GOP bill if it was between the legislation or a shutdown.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, a top target for Republicans in 2026, said he has to see what comes out of the House. Asked if he could support the bill if it’s ultimately sent to the Senate, he said he’s “still assessing its impact on my state.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper, who’s also up for reelection in 2026, said he’d have to see how the legislation ends up. “You do a nine-month CR, you get rid of a huge amount of ability to direct where our funds go. It all just gets turned over to the White House,” Hickenlooper said. “That’s not the way Congress is supposed to act.”
He added that the bill has “real problems,” but noted that, “I didn’t say I was closed to it.”
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Riley Rogerson and Ursula Perano are reporters at NOTUS. Ben T.N. Mause, Tinashe Chingarande and Katherine Swartz are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.
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