Poll: More Americans would blame Trump for shutdown

Just more than 4 in 10 American voters surveyed in a new Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday would blame President Trump if the government partially shuts down this week. 

The survey found that 41 percent of respondents say they’d blame Trump for a shutdown. Ten percent say they’d blame Republicans in Congress if a shutdown takes place. 

{mosads}Roughly one-third, 31 percent, of voters surveyed say they’d blame Democrats in Congress. Eighteen percent say they do not have an opinion on the matter.

The poll also shows that a majority of the Republicans surveyed would support Trump and place blame on Democrats if a shutdown occurs. 

“If a shutdown occurs, two-thirds of Republicans (66%) would blame congressional Democrats, while just 20 percent would blame President Trump and congressional Republicans,”  Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president, told Politico. 

Forty-nine percent of independent voters contacted for the poll say they would blame Trump or Republicans in Congress for a shutdown. 

The results come as Congress tries to approve a series of spending bills in order to keep the government open past Friday. Trump had previously demanded that a spending bill include more than $5 billion for his long-sought wall along the southern border. But the White House said on Tuesday that it would drop that demand. 

Fifty-five percent of voters polled in the new survey said that funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is not important enough to shut down the government. On the other hand, 31 percent said a border wall is important enough for a shutdown. 

Sixty percent of Republican respondents say a border wall is significant enough for a potential shutdown. 

The Politico/Morning Consult survey was conducted between Dec. 14 and 16 among 1,944 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.