The deal cut by some Senate Democrats to reopen government has refueled the party’s tussle over strategy and identity just days after sweeping election victories had raised hopes that the left’s disparate factions were pulling in the same direction heading into the 2026 midterms.
Democrats’ latest fault lines do not track perfectly along the familiar split between progressives and centrists. Instead, there’s renewed rancor over how aggressively to fight President Donald Trump and his compliant GOP majorities on Capitol Hill, with some progressives renewing their calls for Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer to step aside, even as he publicly opposes the latest deal.
The left flank is incensed that eight centrist senators — none of whom face reelection in 2026 — crafted a deal with Republicans that does not guarantee Democrats’ main demand to extend Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that will expire at the end of the year. They say the agreement means Schumer could not hold his caucus together.
Some moderates are frustrated, or at least caught on a political tightrope after more than a month of Democrats agreeing that the longest federal shutdown ever was the way, finally, to use their limited influence to achieve some policy and political wins in a Republican-dominated capital.
Party leaders including Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries continue blaming Republicans for the looming premium spikes and other shutdown ripples, but the standoff’s sudden end underscores the difficulty of maintaining Democrats’ fragile and fractious coalition.
“The Republicans have learned they could hurt our communities, they could hurt everyday people, including their own constituents, and Democrats will fold,” said Maurice Mitchell, who leads the progressive Working Families Party.
New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, who won by more than double Democrats’ 2024 margin in her state, said victories like hers showed voters “want leadership with a backbone” who “stay strong under pressure.”
Instead, she said, “The Senate is on the brink of caving.”
Democrats’ dealmakers say there was no viable alternative
The Democrats who cut a deal counter that they had little choice — that Republicans weren’t budging, and the pressure of the prolonged shutdown had become untenable as the Trump administration withheld food assistance payments to low-income Americans and mandated flight delays at airports strained by a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Democrats settled for a pledge from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to hold a December vote on ACA subsidies, along with assuring back pay for federal workers who’ve missed paychecks, among other policy details.
“This was the only deal on the table,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.
Democrats pointed to Trump, after the GOP’s electoral defeats, calling on Republican senators to end the filibuster and bypass the minority altogether. That, the centrists argued, showed Trump could not be maneuvered into negotiations — though Republican senators were pushing back to defend the filibuster.
“After 40 days, it wasn’t going to work,” Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said of Democrats’ demands.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, Schumer’s deputy, said the shutdown “seemed to be an opportunity to lead us to a better policy. But it didn’t work.”
That did not convince many center-left and swing-state Democrats.
Senate holdouts included Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who won her seat in 2024 at the same time Trump won Michigan and other industrial Midwest battlegrounds, and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, the only Democratic senator running for reelection in 2026 in a state Trump won in 2024.
“Premiums are set to double for 1.4 million Georgians and nearly half a million Georgians could lose health insurance altogether,” Ossoff said in a statement, before shifting blame to the GOP. “The President refuses to fix it and withholds SNAP benefits while the House has not even to come to work for six weeks.”
Mallory McMorrow, a Michigan state senator running for U.S. Senate, said the situation embodies a larger issue for the party, with Democrats playing by the usual set of rules while Republicans use more brazen tactics.
“It makes you wonder what was the fight for? Why the sacrifice?” McMorrow said, adding that some senators govern out of “nostalgia” without understanding a new landscape. “A refusal to evolve and recognize this is not the same Senate that it was a decade ago or even five years ago means that the party is never going to win.”
The deal highlights Democrats’ generational divides
None of the eight senators at the center of the agreement face voters in 2026, and they have an average age exceeding 65. Shaheen, 78, and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, 80, already have announced their retirements ahead of the midterms.
Shaheen found herself at odds with her daughter, 51-year-old Stefany Shaheen, who is running for Congress in New Hampshire. The younger Shaheen noted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal thus far to schedule a House vote on the ACA insurance support.
“We need to both end this shutdown and extend the ACA tax credits,” she said in a statement. “Otherwise, no deal.”
It’s a difficult turn, especially, for Schumer. The 74-year-old New Yorker faced withering critiques for not shutting down government in the spring. The mention of his name last Friday at CrookedCon, a gathering of progressives in Washington, drew jeers and boos, even as he remained dug in for the latest shutdown fight.
The age of Democrats’ national leaders and the related assertion that they’re out of touch with the base have been defining aspects of the party dynamic for several years, with Joe Biden being the oldest president in U.S. history and having to be forced out of a reelection bid at the age of 82. But Biden and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is retiring from the House at age 85, got credit for muscling through significant legislation with thin Democratic majorities.
Schumer, 74, played a key role in those accomplishments, too, leading Senate Democrats during Biden’s presidency. But he’s sometimes gotten less credit from party activists, and now he faces criticism for not keeping his caucus together in the latest shutdown fight, even with public polling and election outcomes suggesting voters were siding with Democrats.
“The best way to unify the Democratic Party and win big in 2026 is to make clear that the new generation of Democratic senators we elect will NOT be following Chuck Schumer down a losing path,” Progressive Change Campaign Committee chief Adam Green wrote to the organization’s supporters Monday, as he called for Schumer to step aside.
Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is running against Maine Gov. Janet Mills for the right to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, also said Schumer should hand over caucus leadership.
“People are fed up with this,” Platner told Our Revolution activists on a Monday conference call. The deal, Platner said, “is just one more very stark piece of evidence to show that he is just completely unable to rise to this moment.”
Dems still want Republicans to own health care cuts
Durbin and others argue the six-week shutdown yielded something tangible because it elevated the healthcare issue. The promised Senate vote, they reason, will put each Republican on record and ensure Trump and his party will again have to take responsibility for any negative effects on people around the country.
“We get our day in court in December,” Durbin insisted.
Mitchell, meanwhile, said progressives already are looking ahead to 2026, starting with Democratic primary fights up and down the ballot.
“We don’t take any pride in the capitulation of our friends inside the Democratic Party,” he said. “But the story writes itself for why we need a fighting opposition party right now.”
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