One way the shutdown deal might actually help Democrats

A plurality of voters approve of the deal to end the government shutdown. Democrats have an opportunity to claim they saved SNAP & other government programs, which could help repair the party's image

Democrats won the 2025 elections in large part due to a successful message on affordability. The one thing that Abigail Spanberger, Mikie Sherrill, and Zohran Mamdani have in common is that they ran campaigns relentlessly focused on the cost of living and Trump’s direct contribution to higher prices — mainly from tariffs.

Zooming out, anti-incumbent sentiment also helped these candidates transform “inflation” (really it’s elevated nominal prices, not annual change in prices) into an issue that favors Democrats — a big shift since Nov. 2024. As of Q3 2025, the Democrats have their first lead on the economy in over 5 years — and the largest lead over Republicans in over a decade.

One editorial interpretation of Democrats’ success last week is that the party has succeeded in convincing a majority of voters that it cares about them (I will have updated polling data on this question next week). Probably the biggest weakness for the party in 2024 was that most voters said it was out of touch …