On January 30, 2026, the US Senate, with votes from 48 Republicans and 23 Democrats, approved a package of bills for funding government institutions for the 2026 fiscal year.
Five bills, which found support among an absolute majority of the Republican faction and nearly half of the Democrats in the Senate, allocated funds for the Department of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, as well as other government agencies.
At the same time, the adoption of such decisions on the day the previous government funding expired caused a shutdown—a temporary suspension of operations for the relevant ministries and agencies, which will last until the mentioned legislative initiatives are approved in the House of Representatives.
The most problematic element of government funding remains the conflict over the advisability of allocating funds to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without conducting fundamental reforms of this agency.
On January 22, 2026, the House of Representatives approved funding for DHS by a vote of 220 to 207, thanks to the support of this Republican initiative by seven Democrats, who voted for it due to a series of concessions on reforming the Department included by Republicans in the bill.
However, further coordination of the DHS budget became significantly complicated after the killing of community activist Alex Pretty in Minneapolis by federal agents of this agency.
The incident intensified public outrage over DHS actions, under whose jurisdiction Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had fatally wounded US citizen Rene Good 17 days earlier.
The resonance surrounding the actions of federal agents further activated rallies against law enforcement activities, which have been ongoing since January 7, 2026.
On January 30, 2026, opponents of deportation measures, the deployment of ICE law enforcement in an increasing number of American cities, and their overreach organized a nationwide strike called “ICE Out,” and during the first week after Pretty’s killing, mass actions took place in Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and other major cities.
The large-scale actions that unfolded across the country prompted the Democratic faction in the Senate to refuse support for DHS funding, even despite the compromise provisions proposed by Republican congressmen.
In order to secure Democratic approval for funding the Department’s activities, Republicans agreed to equip ICE officers with body cameras, strengthen oversight mechanisms for law enforcement activities, and reduce funding for deportation measures by $115 million.
However, after the intensification of protests, whose participants are critically disposed toward the Republican administration and thus potential Democratic Party electorate in the midterm congressional elections, the party leadership assessed such Republican concessions as insufficient.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer emphasized the need to limit the right of immigration police to use force against protesters, stop city patrols by ICE agents, further strengthen accountability and oversight mechanisms for law enforcement, including by prohibiting them from wearing masks while performing their duties.
Since the funding of government departments and agencies was considered within a single appropriations package, the Democratic faction in the Senate had the opportunity to block its adoption, thereby causing the shutdown of the Pentagon, State Department, and other key institutions for the functioning of state power.
A full-scale shutdown did not pose significant electoral risks for Democrats—on the contrary, amid declining ratings for Donald Trump and the Republican Party as a whole, the social tension caused by the suspension of government agencies further worsens voters’ attitudes toward the White House.
During the shutdown that lasted in October-November 2025, 38% of American respondents placed the blame for the inability to agree on government spending solely on the Republican Party.
Taking into account that 31% of those surveyed considered both political forces responsible for the temporary suspension of ministry and agency activities, the total share of citizens who considered the Republican Party fully or partially involved in declaring the 2025 shutdown reached nearly 70%.
During the interparty disagreements over federal government funding for the 2026 fiscal year, the political position of the Republican Party became even more vulnerable.
From the perspective of a significant portion of the American electorate, the escalation of the conflict between Republicans and Democrats over the appropriations bills package has a clearly identifiable root cause, which lies in the Republican majority’s desire to approve DHS funding without structural reforms of this institution.
At the same time, critical attitudes toward the activities of the Department of Homeland Security and its subordinate structures among American citizens are increasingly growing after the latest incidents involving DHS.
According to Gallup polling data, in October 2025, Americans’ attitudes toward the Department of Homeland Security were characterized by predominant support—42% of respondents evaluated DHS activities positively, while another 23% rated them satisfactorily.
However, a CBS News/YouGov study conducted shortly after the killing of Rene Good in early 2026 recorded an increase in voter dissatisfaction with law enforcement actions, and primarily with the ICE department.
As of mid-January 2026, 52% of Americans emphasized that ICE activities reduce the level of safety in populated areas, and 61% of those surveyed described law enforcement actions as too harsh. According to the non-profit organization ACLU, 55% of citizens support ending mass ICE raids.
Dissatisfaction with ICE activities is a consequence of increasingly widespread voter distrust of Republican immigration policy. An Associated Press-NORC study showed that 61% of respondents disapprove of the White House’s initiatives on migration issues, while at the beginning of Trump’s term, this figure was around 50%.
Critical attitudes of citizens toward the immigration measures of the presidential administration become even more noticeable due to the unpopularity of the officials responsible for their implementation.
A Quinnipiac poll conducted in mid-January 2026 established that the level of support for the activities of Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem is 36%, while 52% of Americans disapprove of her work.
Support ratings for Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller are even lower—according to YouGov, only 17% of those surveyed positively evaluate his activities.
The growth of critical assessments of ICE tactics, negative attitudes toward the heads of the Republican administration’s security bloc, and dissatisfaction with the White House’s migration policy as a whole create favorable conditions.
In this context, Democrats’ demands to limit the powers of immigration police correspond to the demands of the overwhelming majority of society.
Due to such public sentiments, political responsibility for a new shutdown will increasingly be placed less on the Democratic Party, which positions its actions as an attempt to reform unpopular migration institutions, and more on Republican politicians.
In such circumstances, conservatives face significant electoral risks ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, which are already being recorded by public opinion polls.
Indicators from the RealClear Polling aggregator show that Democrats are ahead of Republicans by 4.8%, and in the first week after the killing of Alex Pretty in Minneapolis, the electoral advantage of Democratic Party candidates increased on average by 0.4%.
According to an Associated Press-NORC poll, the level of voter dissatisfaction with the White House’s economic and international policy is identical to the distrust of the administration’s immigration measures and stands at 61-62%.
As a result of the loss of part of public support by Trump’s team and the Republican Party, a Washington Post/Ipsos poll in the fall of 2025 recorded that 53% of voters want a Democratic majority in the next Congress, as it, in the respondents’ opinion, will become a restraining factor on White House initiatives.
However, despite the political benefits that the Democratic Party could gain from proper media coverage of the conflict over government funding, the Democratic leadership in the Senate did not take advantage of the opportunity to block appropriations for federal agencies.
As a result of the compromise reached, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer secured the exclusion of the DHS funding bill from the broader package of laws—the Senate approved five bills for funding key government structures, while for the Department of Homeland Security, temporary funding was agreed upon for a two-week period.
The senators’ decision to introduce short-term funding for DHS and the desire of both factions to avoid a long-term shutdown demonstrated the existence of a consensus in the Capitol regarding the inadvisability of escalating internal political conflict at the current moment.
The senators’ readiness to reach an agreed decision was influenced by the experience of the October-November 2025 shutdown, which resulted in sending about 900,000 federal employees on unpaid leave, suspending a number of social programs, and economic losses.
According to economists at Moody’s Corporation holding company, who made this assessment during the suspension of government institutions in the fall of 2025, each week of a federal shutdown has the potential to reduce the annual real GDP growth rate in the corresponding quarter by approximately 0.1%.
Additional negative consequences during the previous shutdown were faced by those federal structures whose continuous operation directly affects the US geopolitical position amid escalating confrontation with the axis of autocracies.
A consequence of the partial government shutdown in the fall of 2025 was the problem of paying salaries to military personnel.
Already in the second week of the shutdown, the White House decided to fund military personnel using Pentagon funds previously allocated for other needs.
By the end of October 2025, the DoD had to accept donations from private donors and direct them toward paying salaries and benefits for American military personnel.
62% of US State Department employees were sent on unpaid leave, and among employees of the Department of Defense, Department of the Interior, and Department of Energy, temporary staff reductions were 45%, 53%, and 59%, respectively.
In November 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration were reducing the number of flights and introducing restrictions on flights in certain areas due to staff shortages.
According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the six-week shutdown in the fall of 2025 led to a loss of about $11 billion in real GDP and caused a deferral of federal expenditures amounting to approximately $54 billion.
A new suspension of operations for a significant number of ministries and agencies in the country created the risk of repeating the mentioned problems.
Given the foreign policy challenges, economic issues, significant social discontent, and a high level of public polarization, a potential shutdown laid the foundation for weakening the state’s resilience.
Moreover, declaring a second shutdown in four months at a stage of complicating relations between the White House and European political dynamics formed the risk of further reducing the trust of US Western partners in Washington’s ability to act as a stable center for decision-making during a period of intensified global competition.
An additional challenge that prompted American lawmakers to resolve political differences without a prolonged suspension of federal government operations was political instability in Iran and statements by the ayatollah regime’s leaders.
As a result, Washington faces the need to maintain the ability of American military personnel to coordinate actions and respond quickly to changes in the military-political situation in the Middle East.
Ultimately, the risk of another shutdown exacerbates the economic problems facing the United States at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026.
At the end of 2025, the US unemployment rate rose to 4.6% and reached its highest level since November 2021, while a potential shutdown would further increase this figure by laying off part of federal employees.
In parallel, a government shutdown would slow the country’s GDP growth, worsen consumer sentiments, which, according to a University of Michigan study in December 2025, were close to record lows over the last four-year observation period, and lead to instability in the country’s stock market.
To avoid such risks, both Republican and Democratic senators resorted to partial softening of confrontation and adjustment of their negotiating positions.
Chuck Schumer’s statements indicated that blocking government operations is not currently considered by Democrats as a tool of pressure on the White House.
At the same time, by their willingness to compromise and postpone the final decision on DHS funding, the Republican Party signals that it places national interests and countering autocracies above tactical conflict with Democrats.
Despite the fact that foreign policy challenges and economic risks have conditioned the readiness of both political forces to seek temporary solutions regarding government funding, the fragile consensus in the Capitol will not persist for a long period.
The 2026 budget year in the US will end a month before the midterm elections, and thus in September 2026, congressmen will again face the need to coordinate funding for the American federal sector.
Under conditions of partial and temporary de-escalation of geopolitical tension, as well as stabilization of the American currency and precious metals market, budget debates in both chambers of Congress in the fall of 2026 will acquire a systemic character.
They will also transform into one of the main tools of pre-election competition between Republicans and Democrats.
Thus, even a potential agreement on DHS funding in February 2026 will only postpone the escalation of interparty conflict until the fall of 2026, after which both political forces will resume attempts to change the domestic political agenda in the US through pressure on budget appropriations.
The main factor that could postpone the apex of the conflict between congressmen from both parties in the fall of 2026 is the preservation of the current level of geopolitical tension.
Political stabilization of the ayatollah regime and the buildup of China’s military-political activity in the Pacific region will place both Republicans and Democrats before the need to make mutual concessions and reach compromises at least in the defense, foreign policy, and budget spheres.
This is because consensus in Congress on key issues for the United States becomes a factor on which the further course of confrontation between Washington and the axis of autocracies will depend.
