The poll found 39% of Americans blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress for the shutdown, while 33% blamed Democrats in Congress. Another 20% blamed both Democrats and Republicans equally, while 8% said they were not sure.

The poll echoes other recent surveys that also found that more Americans blame Republicans and Trump for the shutdown rather than Democrats.

The poll also found Americans widely disapproved of Trump and lawmakers in Congress when it came to how they were handling the shutdown. Fifty-three percent of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of the shutdown, 53% disapproved of congressional Republicans’ handling of the issue and 52% approved of Democrats’ handling of it.

Most Americans in the poll said they were not strongly affected by the shutdown. Just 7% said they were affected a “great deal” by the shutdown, 14% said they were “somewhat” affected, 25% said they were “a little” affected and 54% said they were not affected at all.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20251015105755/https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/10/americans-weigh-in-on-government-shutdown-in-latest-poll-and-the-results-show-trouble-for-trump.html

More results from the same poll at https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53161-government-shutdown-donald-trump-approval-ice-immigration-economy-doj-justice-department-conversion-therapy-october-10-13-2025-economist-yougov-poll (arc)

    • manxu@piefed.social
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      14 hours ago

      My guess is 33% don’t know that healthcare is the sticking item, and that the Democrats are trying to save the ACA subsidies. You wouldn’t know that’s the case if you watched conservative media.

  • klammeraffe@lemmy.cafe
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    17 hours ago

    Lmfao, there is no trouble for Trump. He’s old, he’s never leaving office, and zero people are doing anything to stop him.

    • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      This ludicrous reality would be slightly more tolerable if people would stop acting like this is business as usual

  • PKscope@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    39% blame conservatives.

    33% blame democrats.

    100% of me doesn’t understand my fellow countryman anymore.

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Love how you can predict these polls without even looking at the percentages.

      Q: Is Donald Trump eating a baby live on CSPAN the fault of the Republicans or the Democrats?

      A:

      39% Democrats

      41% Republicans

      12% Both sides are to blame.

      8% I don’t know.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.worldOP
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      17 hours ago

      doesn’t understand my fellow countryman anymore.

      I think they’re heavily propagandized, but basically decent if you can actually get them to see reality. Take this set of findings from the full poll link as an example

      • More Americans say they have no confidence at all in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than say they have a great deal of confidence (38% vs. 26%)

      • Two-thirds (67%) of Americans think that while making arrests, ICE officers should be required to wear uniforms; 18% say they shouldn’t be required to

      • About half (52%) of Americans say ICE officers should not be allowed to wear masks that hide their identities while making arrests and 35% say they should

      • Views on anti-ICE protests are split: 40% believe they have mostly been peaceful and 39% believe they have mostly been violent

      Like, those first three bullet points tell me large majorities want the right things, but that last one shows that lots of them are living in worlds of disinformation

      e; Also, I can find a ton of headlines talking about how the percentage that blame Dems for the shutdown and that blame the GOP moved up and down a few points respectively, but I haven’t seen any headlines focusing specifically on 2/3 of Americans saying ICE officers should be required to wear uniforms

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.worldOP
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          13 hours ago
          1. That doesn’t make any sense, either they blame both equally or they blame Dems more, there’s no room for overlap between those two positions with how the questions and possible answers were phrased

          2. Even if that did make sense (which it does not), combine blame both equally with blame Republicans and you’d get even further over 50%, because 39 is a bigger number than 33

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          Let’s assume your horrific understanding of basic logic was correct: combine the numbers that blame both equally with those that blame the Republicans.

          Is that number more or less than the number you are saying blame the Democrats?

          I’ll help you out. The number is 59 vs 53. Guess which number is larger.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      19 hours ago

      The next substantial point that will affect the administration is going to be the midterm elections, and what happens with control of the House of Representatives. Right now, there’s a Republican trifecta in place. If the Democratic Party gets control of the House, they get a substantial check on the Executive Branch. Midterms are still a year away, but it’s close enough that things that affect public views do matter.

      Presidential popularity tends to affect midterm voting patterns.

      EDIT: And to be fair, yes, it is still early. What’s happening in, say, nine months will probably matter more, pound-for-pound, due to proximity to the election. But, on the other hand, a year isn’t that long, either, and what happens will have some impact.

      If you look at the polling for the UK general elections, what’s going on is rather eye-opening:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

      Political movement does matter, because when you get right up to the elections, there’s already inertia to the situation.

      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        I look at all the insane shit that has happened in just over 9 months and think about what things could still happen in the 13 months before the midterm elections. I don’t have much hope that political momentum is going to matter.

        Also, polling doesn’t mean everything, especially not this far away. Trump was losing the polls in two of his three elections. He won both of those times.

      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Their point wasn’t that they didn’t care. It’s that polls don’t matter to a president that is trying to take over the country as a dictatorship.