212 House Democrats Vote To Shut Down Government

Approximately 212 House Democrats voted against a House GOP-backed government funding bill Tuesday afternoon to fund the government through the end of September.

The stopgap government funding bill passed the House of Representatives 217 to 213. House Democrats’ decision to oppose a six-month extension of government funding, known as a continuing resolution (CR) comes after many Democratic lawmakers previously warned about the dangers of shutting down the government during previous government funding fights.

Just one House Democrat, Maine Rep. Jared Golden, voted with House Republicans to avert a government shutdown scheduled to occur on Friday after midnight. Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie was the lone GOP lawmaker to oppose the CR, citing the stopgap government funding bill’s failure to incorporate Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts and significantly cut spending levels.

Trump and House Republicans have vowed to incorporate DOGE cuts during the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process. In two posts on Truth Social, the president suggested he will back a primary challenge against Massie after the Kentucky lawmaker pledged to buck the GOP on the stopgap funding bill.

The CR now heads to the Senate and will need the support of at least eight Senate Democrats to overcome the upper chamber’s filibuster. Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has committed to support the CR, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation he will never vote to shut down the government.

House GOP leaders sharply criticized Democratic lawmakers for pledging to vote against the CR and making false claims about the bill’s provisions to justify their opposition.

“There’s nothing in this bill about Social Security — not a single thing,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma said during floor debate on the bill. “We’ve heard a lot about Medicare. We don’t deal with Medicare on the Appropriations Committee. It’s not in here. We’ve heard a lot about Medicaid. It’s not in here either.”

“If our Democrat colleagues want to increase their 21% approval rating with the American public they ought to start by doing the right thing and keeping the government open,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at the House GOP leadership conference Tuesday.

Just over 20% of voters have a favorable approval rating of congressional Democrats’ job performance, which is an all-time low according to a February Quinnipiac University poll.

House GOP leadership unveiled a 99-page stopgap government funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), on Saturday to fund government operations through the end of September. The bill is the product of close coordination with the Trump administration to ensure the government is spending less money on nondefense spending than the previous fiscal year while boosting defense spending and funding for veterans healthcare and the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children.

The bill also includes funding for a pay raise for junior enlisted service members, which is slated to take effect next month.

Vice President JD Vance and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought lobbied skeptical GOP lawmakers, some of whom had never supported a stopgap government funding bill before, to vote for the CR, according to multiple reports.

Some House Democrats defended their vote against the CR by arguing that the House should have continued with bipartisan negotiations to pass government funding bills through regular order instead.

“I want to keep government open, but I’m not voting for a CR,” Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz told the DCNF despite previously voting for several stopgap funding bills during the last Congress.

House Republicans blamed Democratic lawmakers for trying to impose limitations on the Department of Government Efficiency and the president’s authority to slash government spending as the reason for why government funding bill negotiations ultimately stalled.

“The Democrats are responsible for the mess we’re in because they added these completely undeliverable positions to the negotiations,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “They wanted us to tie the hands of the administration.”

“They’re trying to shut down anything that President Trump is trying to do, also trying to shut down everything DOGE is trying to do,” Republican Arizona Rep. Eli Crane told the DCNF.