Americans by a slim margin blame Republicans for the government shutdown, a poll shows.
Forty-one percent single out GOP lawmakers for the impasse, while 36 percent name Democrats and 23 percent say they don’t know or don’t have an opinion, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Monday.
The government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after the Senate failed to pass a temporary spending bill that would have funded operations until Feb. 16.
The gridlock was caused because Democrats and Republicans couldn’t come to an agreement on protections for young immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and increasing border security by building a wall on the Mexican border.
The poll shows Americans are evenly split at 42 percent on the question of whether DACA is an important enough issue to shutter the government.
Another 16 percent said they don’t know or don’t have an opinion.
On the border wall question, 59 percent believe it isn’t worth shutting down the government for, but 27 percent disagree.
Fourteen percent don’t know or don’t have an opinion.
The poll was conducted Jan. 18-19 and surveyed 1,017 registered voters. It has a plus or minus 3 percentage-point margin of error.