The 10 Democratic senators running for reelection this year in states won by President Donald Trump once looked like easy marks for bipartisan legislative deals.

But as Washington stands on the brink of a government shutdown, they’re largely refusing to break ranks with their party, shrugging off the threat of a backlash at the polls. Much as they stuck together against Republicans’ Obamacare-repeal push and the GOP tax bill last year, most red-state Democrats appear prepared to link arms with their more liberal colleagues who’ve vowed to oppose a monthlong stopgap spending plan as written.


Their undecided stance speaks to Trump’s plummeting popularity and Republicans’ flagging prospects in the midterms. The centrist Democrats seem to see little threat in crossing the president, who a month ago watched his candidate lose in Alabama, a state about as red as they come.

Even Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the lone red-state Democratic senator to make clear from the start that he would support another short-term spending bill, dismissed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy to pin a potential shutdown on vulnerable Democrats.

“Mitch controls the agenda — he’s in the majority,” Manchin said in a Thursday interview, adding: “So if Mitch thinks he’s going to walk from this, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”

It helps that Republicans appear short of votes themselves to steer the spending bill through the upper chamber, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) declaring their opposition. And vulnerable Democrats may soon feel a serious squeeze, with McConnell laying plans to force them through a series of tough votes in the event of a shutdown.

But red-state Democratic senators are also facing less pressure than expected from liberal activists, who have focused their energies elsewhere while pressing for a deal to aid undocumented immigrants.

Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Angel Padilla, policy director at the liberal group Indivisible, cited Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s criticism of the stopgap spending plan — which was unrelated to immigration — as a sign that some red-state Democrats “are showing courage in this moment.”

“To be completely honest, we haven’t been targeting aggressively these red-state Democrats from the beginning,” Padilla said in an interview.

Instead, Padilla explained, activists have focused on the blue-state Democratic senators among the 18 members of the minority who supported last month’s most recent short-term spending bill while an immigration deal remained out of reach. Given that those blue-state Democrats “voted the wrong way,” he said, “it seemed to us we should start with some low-hanging fruit.”

As the House geared up to pass the spending bill on Thursday night, however, eight of the 10 blue-state Democrats who voted yes on December’s bill had vowed to oppose it as a potential shutdown loomed less than 30 hours away. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) all publicly declared as nos — as did Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats.

Kaine, who is up for reelection this year, told reporters Thursday that Republicans “made it sort of easy” to come out against the short-term spending bill, “because they know they need Democratic votes.”

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) also moved from the yes camp to leaning no, and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) came out against the bill late Thursday. Coons said that senators might “end up being here for several days” should government funding run out on Friday, in order to “test-vote a whole series of deals from both sides until we get to something that can get enough support to keep the government open” while addressing immigration, defense funding, children’s health insurance and a host of other priorities.

But even as Republicans prepared a PR campaign to slam them as responsible for a possible shutdown, none of the 10 Senate Democrats up for reelection in states Trump won stepped up Thursday to publicly join Manchin in supporting the House’s spending stopgap.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), ripped by the National Republican Senatorial Committee as “not the centrist he pretended to be to get elected,” answered the GOP criticism with a poke at the party in complete control of Washington.

“They’ve got to keep their promises,” Casey said when asked about Republicans’ bid to blame vulnerable Democrats for any shutdown. “And so far they’re not indicating they’re going to keep their promises.”

Casey is one of three vulnerable Democratic senators who opposed December’s government funding patch, alongside Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Alabama’s new Democratic senator, Doug Jones, was not seated for that vote but on Thursday said he was still undecided on this week’s stopgap spending bill.

“My concern is, it’s another” continuing resolution, Jones told reporters. “It’s just no way to run the government.”

But even as McConnell (R-Ky.) prodded him to support the spending bill — which includes six years of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP — Jones said that pressure wouldn’t affect his decision.

And Tester, another red-state Democrat high on GOP target lists, escalated his early concerns in an op-ed that derided the stopgap bill as “a disgrace” and “a slap in the face of every Montanan who works hard and deserves certainty from their leaders.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, another vulnerable Democrat who has yet to come out in support of the short-term spending bill, lamented on Twitter on Thursday: “We have had 4 CRs in 5 months! … And one party is completely in charge.”

Liberal activists mobilized to provide further spine-stiffening for Democratic senators on Thursday. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin joined MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress and the pro-immigration group United We Dream to tout a survey that shows support for aid to so-called Dreamers from a majority of voters from a dozen states that will host contested Senate races this fall.

Garin pointed to an “energy and enthusiasm gap” that would benefit Democrats in the coming midterms, while the Washington director of MoveOn.org, Ben Wikler, appealed to Democratic unity in urging the party to stay as united as possible.

“Senate Democrats spanning the spectrum understand that the American people want to protect Dreamers, they want CHIP, they want to keep government open,” Wikler said in an interview.

Asked about his group’s response to any red-state Democratic senators who might cross the aisle to back a stopgap spending bill -- whether or not the number is high enough to help Republicans avoid a shutdown -- Wikler declined to issue any threats.

“The grassroots is laser-focused on making sure that Dreamers get protected, that CHIP gets reauthorized, and that government stays open and continues to work for the American people,” he said.

“That’s the goal, and that’s where our energies will focus.”