Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor, is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) All anyone needed to know about how the #SchumerShutdown was going to end could be found in the votes of five red-state Democrats who, on Friday night, bailed on their party's leader and supported President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's position to keep the government open.

Scott Jennings

Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), Joe Donnelly (Indiana), Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) and Doug Jones (Alabama) bucked Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer because they knew there was no way to explain why their party was prioritizing 700,000 non-US citizens in the DACA program over nine million children who rely on the CHIP program for insurance. Four of those senators are on the ballot this November, and the other-- Jones -- just got to Washington and seems like a guy who wants to stay there when he faces re-election in 2020.

A lack of Democratic unity destroyed Schumer's leverage. A smarter tactic than enabling a shutdown would have been for Democrats to offer McConnell nine votes on Friday night, forcing the majority leader to come up with 51 Republican votes (which he did not have). Had the Democrats made a better strategic choice, they might have won the fight narrative.

Instead, Senate Democrats owned this shutdown as headlines in various media outlets correctly assigned Schumer the blame. CNN's polling was clear : Americans -- by a 56% to 34% margin -- said DACA should not take priority over keeping the government open, and voters believe a CHIP extension is more important than fixing DACA.

McConnell read his cards and the situation just right. He knew the red-state Democrats would never rejoin their party's left wing, and he worked with Sen. Lindsey Graham to recapture some of the Republicans who voted against the original deal by crafting the February 8 strategy promising to handle immigration at that time. Interestingly, McConnell and Graham offered Schumer the three-week off ramp Friday night and he rejected it , giving his conference a weekend of pain and a bended knee on Monday.