By Julia Harte
-From federal paychecks to public benefits, the longest U.S. government shutdown in history is cutting lifelines for millions of Americans, many of whom voted for President Donald Trump.
But conversations with five Trump voters – part of a group of 20 whom Reuters has interviewed monthly since February – show that while the shutdown has disrupted their lives, it has not diminished their opinion of Trump’s performance as president.
Both Democrats and Republicans fear the political fallout from the shutdown. But Reuters’ interviews with the panel of Trump voters show little change in pre-existing ideological divisions as a result of the shutdown.
Most of the 20 voters on the panel are among the two-fifths of Americans who, according to recent Reuters-Ipsos polling, blame the shutdown on Democratic lawmakers because they are refusing to vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to extend expiring healthcare subsidies through the Affordable Care Act. A few see both parties at fault for the shutdown or object to Trump using the shutdown to lay off thousands of federal workers: an effort that federal judges have blocked for now.
Here is how five of the voters have experienced the shutdown:
‘A DOMINO EFFECT’
Joyce Kenney, 74, a retiree in Prescott Valley, Arizona, rents one of her properties to her goddaughter, a federal worker who helps low-income Americans obtain social services.
After her goddaughter was furloughed in early October, Kenney urged her to apply for other jobs and sign up for unemployment benefits so that she would be able to cover her bills – including the $2,000 she owes Kenney each month for rent. But the unemployment benefits she received only cover two-thirds of that, never mind food and other monthly expenses.
“It’s a domino effect,” said Kenney. “She doesn’t get paid, so I don’t get paid, and then I have to trim my belt, and maybe some other people behind me don’t get paid, and it keeps on going on.”
The shutdown has also halted a reimbursement check Kenney’s relatives were due to receive from the U.S. Agriculture Department for a farm they have in Montana. “And they’re going, ‘We were really counting on that. We’ve got bills to pay as well,’” she said.
Kenney blames Democrats for the shutdown because of Vice President JD Vance’s assertions that the healthcare subsidies Democratic lawmakers seek to extend will be used fraudulently to benefit undocumented immigrants – claims rejected by Democrats and most congressional budget analysts.
BLOWS TO SMALL BUSINESS
The shutdown has already cost Tampa-based promotional product distributor Steve Egan one $4,000 sale. A Veterans Affairs hospital had asked Egan to procure thousands of beaded necklaces for its float in January’s Gasparilla Pirate Festival, one of the region’s biggest celebrations. But the shutdown forced the hospital to drop out, Egan said.
Flight delays and longer customs processing times caused by the shutdown have also made Egan shorten the lead time he gives customers before they must commit to ordering overseas products.
When a local sheriff’s office told Egan, 65, in October they needed 300 T-shirts for a November event, he found an overseas supplier offering a good deal. Normally, Egan’s client could have waited up to 45 days to accept the deal and still receive the shirts in time, but due to the new uncertainty around shipping schedules, he could only give them half that time to decide – which proved to be too tight a time frame.
“If somebody has to have something on a firm deadline right now, then I’m telling them they need to get themselves a lot of extra time to work with,” he said.
Egan, who has previously said he regrets voting for Trump, blames both Republicans and Democrats for the shutdown. But when it comes to the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats are pushing to extend, he said, he wishes Republican lawmakers would “just fund the thing and let it keep going.” Egan was receiving health insurance through the ACA marketplace until he signed up for Medicare this past August.
FURLOUGHED WORKERS AND JOB SEEKERS UNDER STRESS
The furloughs and the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off tens of thousands of federal workers during the shutdown are worrying Robert Billups, 34, and his mother.
Billups, an accountant in Washington state seeking his next job, fears new federal cuts will make an already shrinking job market more competitive. His last interview was for a government contractor job that required a security clearance, and Billups said he suspects it went to a recently terminated federal employee who already had one.
His mother, a contractor with the Internal Revenue Service, has been furloughed since the second week of October, according to Billups, heightening job anxiety she has felt since the Trump administration began slashing the federal workforce in early 2025.
Billups said his mother is “very resourceful” and has saved money for contingencies such as this. “But if it continues further, it would become an issue,” he said. “I imagine anything more than two months would lead her to be like, ‘okay, I have a problem.’”
Although his mother faults Republicans for not agreeing to support the healthcare subsidy extensions that Democrats are demanding before they vote to reopen the government, Billups said, he appreciates Republicans’ urge to limit spending.
Neither party is “winning” the shutdown in his eyes, however. “It’s so polarized that it kind of almost hurts both of them,” he said.
NON-FURLOUGHED WORKERS ANXIOUS TOO
Amanda Taylor, 52, an insurance firm employee near Savannah, Georgia, said she worries the shutdown will pause her husband’s paycheck if it drags on long enough.
Her husband’s job at a federal agency, which Taylor does not want identified to avoid causing problems for him, has not been affected so far. But if he gets furloughed, Taylor said, “we’ll be in big trouble” because his salary covers most of the couple’s expenses – including a new mortgage on a house they bought earlier this year.
At Taylor’s workplace, she has noticed an uptick in “hardship requests” from clients who work for the federal government and can no longer afford monthly premiums on insurance plans such as auto or home coverage.
Taylor voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 and has complaints about Trump’s presidency, but said she blames Democrats “100%” for the shutdown.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous that the Democrats are tying these Obamacare supplements into passing this budget,” she said. “Those haven’t even expired yet. Does it need to be worked on? Absolutely. But can we maybe pass the budget before we go into this?”
PUBLIC BENEFITS INTERRUPTED
Juan Rivera, 26, has seen and felt the shutdown in many ways, from friends whose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits ceased in early November, to relatives in the military who fear being furloughed, to a dental procedure he deferred.
Rivera, a content creator in southern California, is insured through the state’s Medicaid program and had scheduled a wisdom tooth extraction for October. But his doctor advised him to reschedule it after the shutdown, saying low staffing levels might cause the public insurer to delay approval and processing of his claim.
Rivera said it is hypocritical for Democrats to vote against Republican-backed stopgap bills to reopen government, known as “continuing resolutions,” because they have voted for such measures under Democratic administrations.
“I have to blame the Democrats because they did vote on past occasions to pass a clean resolution,” Rivera said. It frustrated him, he added, to see California’s Democratic lawmakers and governor “blaming the Trump administration for shutting down the government.”
Democrats’ efforts to extend healthcare subsidies for Americans covered under the Affordable Care Act do not impress Rivera. His parents are among the 24 million Americans who get their health insurance through the ACA but, according to Rivera, their plan was never as affordable as they were led to expect and the whole system needs to be reformed.
(Reporting by Julia Harte in New York; editing by Paul Thomasch and Claudia Parsons)
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