BORDER/DEMS/GOP/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump has already started framing a potential government shutdown as the singular fault of Democrats demanding liberal immigration policies at the expense of border security. But Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, as well as veterans of past budget battles and campaigns, say that argument isn’t likely to fly — not while the GOP runs the House, Senate and White House and a deeply unpopular president sits in the Oval Office…
The last time federal agencies shuttered, in 2013, Democrats controlled the Senate and White House. But with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and fellow conservatives pushing for a shutdown in order to whack funding for Obamacare — a popular cause among the Republican base, but not beyond — the GOP could not escape blame in the public eye…
This year, Democrats hold none of Washington’s levers of power, but their central goal in the immigration talks — protections for undocumented individuals brought to the country as minors — is viewed favorably by bipartisan majorities. Trump is mired in low approval ratings, even in battleground states he won in 2016, as he pushes for more money for the border wall he promised on the campaign trail.
And new polling suggests voters are already poised to blame Republicans if talks go awry. A poll released Tuesday by the Democratic-leaning firm Hart Research Associates found 81 percent of voters in a dozen Trump-leaning states supportive of adding aid to the undocumented Dreamers to any government funding bill.”
-Kyle Cheney and Elana Schor, “Shutdown would backfire on GOP, Republicans say,” Politico, Jan. 17, 2018 05:01am