Pollster Says Democrats Launched Shutdown To Tank Trump’s Economy

Pollster Matt Towery said Wednesday that Democrats are deliberately triggering the weeks-long government shutdown to sabotage President Donald Trump’s economic record.

The House ended the historic shutdown Wednesday night by approving a bipartisan spending bill 222–209, despite Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and most Democrats opposing it. Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle,” Towery said that Democrats started the shutdown with a clear political motive, arguing that the party banked on weaker data to undercut the White House.

“It was the Democrats that started this whole thing. They did it to hurt the Trump economy. Because as long as they could keep this shutdown going, they could hurt the economy. And so the economic numbers, when they come out, won’t look as good,” Towery told Laura Ingraham.

Towery rejected the idea that the fight centered primarily on health-care subsidies. He said the standoff served a broader strategy to damage Trump’s standing with voters.

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“They’ll say, ‘Oh, Donald Trump’s not delivering on the economy.’ That was half of the reason they did this. It wasn’t all just about health care. And, moreover, now you have, what is this, one congressman, a Floridian, who’s fairly near me, wanting to hold this up? I don’t care if senators get a little money. I want these people back to work.”

Towery said Democrats have misread public sentiment throughout the shutdown. He also said that ordinary Americans don’t understand the shutdown and the nuances that go with it. (RELATED: Mike Johnson Says Schumer Made Inappropriate Request During Shutdown)

“The American people, and I’m a pollster, I know, they don’t understand the nuances of this. They can’t figure out why they can’t fly through the air. They don’t care. They want this thing fixed and over,” Towery said. “And the Republicans have only hurt Donald Trump by playing a game with this. And the Democrats now have not hurt Trump because as soon as it’s over, his numbers are going to start going up,”

The 43-day shutdown left hundreds of thousands of federal workers covering their bills without pay, threatened low-income Americans’ access to food assistance and disrupted air travel nationwide. The Senate advanced the spending package Monday night after Democrats spent seven weeks blocking efforts to fund the government. Senators ultimately accepted a deal that excluded their top demand — a guaranteed extension of Affordable Care Act premium tax credits that Republicans had rejected from the start.

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