Democrats emboldened by election results mobilize against centrists’ emerging shutdown deal

By Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju, Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — Hours before the first major elections since President Donald Trump’s win last November, Sen. Bernie Sanders offered a stern warning for Democrats about the party’s closed-door talks to end the shutdown.

Inside a tense, three-hour meeting at the Capitol on Tuesday, a fiery Sanders urged Democrats not to yield to Republicans without a real victory on health care. The Vermont independent was armed with fresh polling from a Democratic-aligned firm that showed voters would punish the party for giving up with nothing in return, according to a person familiar with his remarks.

By Wednesday morning, Sanders and his colleagues in Congress pointed to Democrats’ blow-out victories — including in Virginia, a state with thousands of furloughed federal workers — as the most powerful evidence yet they needed to keep fighting.

“It would be very strange if on the heels of the American people rewarding Democrats for standing up and fighting, we surrendered without getting anything,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said. “I think we are in an enormously strong position right now.”

During a private call of House Democrats on Wednesday afternoon, lawmakers, including senior Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, urged each other to call their centrist Senate colleagues directly to make the case against the emerging deal. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries signaled on the call that he was keeping the pressure on his Senate counterpart, according to two people familiar with the discussion. Outside Democratic groups, too, have swiftly mobilized to ramp up pressure on centrists.

Emboldened Hill Democrats pointed to jitters from Trump himself, who privately told a group of Senate Republicans that their party was being “killed” politically by the shutdown. Trump said publicly that “the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans.”

Some of his GOP allies in Congress agreed. Asked if he believed the shutdown hurt Republicans in the elections, Sen. Jim Justice told CNN: “Look, if you didn’t, you’re living in a cave. That’s all there’s to it. Of course, it did.” Justice added that everyday Americans are sitting there watching the shutdown saying, “‘You people are in control. Fix it.’”

Democrats’ election night romp has further scrambled Washington’s shutdown politics, with leaders of both parties now cautiously assessing their next steps as the pain continues to grow for millions of Americans.

Yet it’s not clear if it will substantively shift the strategy of either side, including among the dozen or so centrist Democrats who are still actively engaging in talks with Republicans in a bid to end the record 36-day standoff before the election, potentially without the kind of clear commitment on health care that some Democrats are seeking.

Democrats have made a push to extend soon-to-expire enhanced Affordable Care Act subsides central to the shutdown fight. The fear among some in the party now is that centrists will cut a deal with Republicans that won’t lock in an extension and will only provide for a vote over the issue with no guaranteed outcome.

“Last night was a good night but it was one night of the year,” Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona told CNN when asked about the elections, not answering directly if he would accept a promise of a health care vote. He noted that Democrats are discussing a “reasonable path forward” with the GOP.

Sen. Gary Peters, the retiring Democrat from Michigan, added that many in the party are “feeling very good that the messaging is getting through and Republicans are in a much weaker position today than they were yesterday.”

“I don’t feel (it) changed a lot,” added Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, referring to the outcome of Tuesday’s elections.

As of Tuesday night, roughly a dozen Senate Democratic centrists had privately signaled they were open to the GOP’s proposed shutdown offramp — which includes a future vote on extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies. That group, along with a handful of Republicans, met all morning Wednesday and are still in intense negotiations over a deal that could lead to reopening the government, according to sources familiar with the effort. The timing of when a deal would be announced, and when any votes would occur, is still unclear.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada stressed to CNN that there was “no deal” yet and that discussions were ongoing on health care, adding there are also serious talks about constraining Trump on spending cuts. Party leadership, she said, is not directly involved in the talks.

“I think it has to be part of the discussion,” Cortez Masto, a member of appropriations panel, said of a push to restrain Trump’s ability to interfere with Congress’s power of the purse.

There was at least some post-election movement: Some Senate Democrats involved in talks to end the shutdown sought to use their momentum — as well as Trump’s shutdown comments at the White House — to spur their Republican colleagues to support a compromise framework that would temporarily extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies with some reforms to reopen the government, two Democrats involved in the talks told CNN.

“With that it ends fast; without we stare at each other another week,” one of the sources said of the Obamacare compromise proposal.

But that outcome, too, is unclear, with Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team fiercely resistant to the idea, according to multiple House GOP sources.

The pressure is now — again — on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s been mum on his own stance in the talks. To increase that pressure, Sanders showed up Wednesday morning to Schumer’s press conference to listen in. Instead, he ended up taking the podium before the New York Democrat’s arrival to insist that the party take the right message away from election night.

“What people want is that the Democrats stand up and continue to fight,” Sanders said at his own impromptu press conference. He stressed that Schumer and Democrats can’t simply accept a promise: “There has to be a commitment that the President of the United States is prepared to sign the bill.”

Minutes later, when Schumer was pressed on whether he agrees with Sanders’ position, he would not state his own, saying he isn’t going to negotiate in public.

“We want, we must address the health care needs of the American people, the Republicans ‘gotta sit down and talk to us about it, and I agree with Bernie Sanders, the way to solve this is for Trump to sit down with Jeffries and I,” said Schumer, who also did not express a preference in Tuesday’s marathon lunch meeting of Senate Democrats, according to people familiar with the gathering.

Sanders told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Wednesday night that him taking the podium “was not planned.”

When asked if he was satisfied with Schumer’s remarks, Sanders said, “I think you’ve got to go beyond just saying I want to meet.”

“Sure, you know, the president should be inviting Jeffries and Schumer into the White House to discuss it. But I think we’ve got to lay out what we want,” Sanders said.

It’s not yet clear if Trump’s frustration with the off-year elections will change his own strategy on the shutdown. Despite the president’s evident annoyance with the electoral outcomes, he’s signaled no new appetite for granting Democrats any additional concessions — insisting instead that Senate Republicans should simply abolish the filibuster. GOP leaders have deemed that idea a nonstarter, in a rare split with Trump.

Among more circumspect Trump advisers, there remained an overriding belief that moderate Democrats’ desire to find an off-ramp would ultimately outweigh progressives’ will to keep fighting.

At most, one person close to the process predicted, Democrats would hold out long enough to take a final victory lap on the Sunday political shows before agreeing to a deal early next week.

Still, Republicans acknowledged, the GOP is under increasing pressure to find a resolution as the real-world pain piles up — and Trump presses in harsher terms for the party to go nuclear.

“A winning Trump is less dangerous than a losing Trump. People forget this. If Rs look they they’ll lose midterms, his pressure on filibuster to pass agenda before he leaves office will be insane,” one Senate GOP aide said in a text to CNN. “Trump is about to throw everything at Congress. Especially if he doesn’t get his way on tariffs.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

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CNN’s Annie Grayer, Ted Barrett, Dana Bash, Ellis Kim and Keely Aouga contributed.