A new AP-NORC poll shows that most Americans see the ongoing government shutdown as a serious problem.
While President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans shoulder much of the blame, Democrats in Congress are not escaping scrutiny from voters frustrated with Washington gridlock.
The survey, conducted Oct. 9-13, 2025, finds that 58% of U.S. adults assign “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility to Trump and Republicans in Congress for the shutdown — but nearly as many, 54%, say the same about congressional Democrats.
While Democrats have tried to frame the crisis as a failure of Republican leadership, the data suggest Americans view the standoff as a bipartisan failure. The poll’s language, that there is “plenty of blame to go around,” underscores widespread cynicism with both parties.
Among Democrats, eight in 10 blame Trump and GOP lawmakers for the budget impasse. Republicans, meanwhile, point fingers at Democrats in nearly equal measure.
But independents, a key electoral bloc, appear to split their frustration evenly across the aisle, suggesting that Democrats’ efforts to shift responsibility may not be resonating beyond their base.
The public’s disapproval isn’t limited to partisan squabbles.
Nine in 10 adults call the shutdown at least a “minor” problem, and about half call it a “major” one.
Even many who support extending Affordable Care Act tax credits question why lawmakers have allowed the fight to stall government operations, which is at the center of the dispute.
That underlying issue remains murky to many voters: 42% say they have no opinion on the ACA tax credit extension itself.
Across the board, confidence in Congress remains abysmal.
Only 4% of Americans report “a great deal” of confidence in the institution, while roughly half say they have “hardly any.”
Party favorability is also low, but Republicans hold a slight edge, with 40% viewing them favorably compared to 30% for Democrats.
The poll makes clear that Trump and the GOP face heavy criticism, but Democrats’ hard-line approach isn’t without political cost. Their refusal to compromise on spending provisions tied to healthcare funding could reinforce perceptions of dysfunction on both sides of the aisle.
With the federal shutdown stretching into mid-October, the American public appears united on at least one point: Washington’s leaders, Republican and Democrat alike, have let the country down.
The AP-NORC poll was conducted using a nationally representative sample of 1,100 adults drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak® Panel. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
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