Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York argued that Democrats may not suffer substantially in the midterm elections despite criticism that they were responsible for the government shutdown.
“It seems that they have not suffered a lot of political reversals because of this, even though you had millions of people greatly inconvenienced and suffering at the airports,” York said on Fox Business’s Kudlow on Tuesday.
York said his “theory” is that Democrats will face minimal electoral impact from the shutdown, despite Republicans being the party willing to negotiate.
“[Republicans] started to negotiate with the Democrats,” York said. “The party that loses the shutdown is the party that attaches conditions to reopening the government. The party that wins the shutdown is the party that says ‘No, stop right now, we’re not going to talk right now, you will open the government first, and then we’ll talk about your issue.’”
York emphasized that this is a winning strategy; however, he argued that Republicans may be getting their wires crossed.
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“When you start negotiating with the other side, the picture gets kind of muddy in the public’s mind. They see the two parties bickering and think maybe they’re both to blame.”
Congress is currently on recess until April 13, stalling further action to reopen the government. The current partial government shutdown marks the longest in history.
