Dems’ Shutdown Blues

A new poll over the weekend by YouGov/CBS News shows that a majority (55%) of U.S. adults surveyed believe Donald Trump and the Republican Party “got more of what they wanted” in the deal to end the government shutdown. Only 6% said Democrats came out ahead, while 15% said both sides “equally” got what they wanted, and 24% said neither side prevailed.

YouGov/CBS recontacted Americans interviewed in their early November poll, conducted while the shutdown was ongoing. Not surprisingly, respondents who self-identified as Democrats were most upset with the deal to end the shutdown, struck when eight Democrats joined with 52 Republicans in the Senate to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to end the filibuster.

Fifty-five percent of Democrats said their party “compromised too much” in ending the filibuster. Forty-eight percent said they felt “frustrated” by the deal, followed closely by 45% who said they were “dissatisfied,” and another 32% who described themselves as “pessimistic.”

For full results of the YouGov/CBS News poll, click here.

Religion in America, Up or Down?

On Friday’s episode of the RealClearPolitics Podcast, Andy Walworth, Carl Cannon, and I discussed a disturbing new poll from Gallup showing a huge drop in the importance of religion among U.S. adults. Ten years ago, 66% of Americans said religion was an important part of their daily lives. In 2025, less than half (49%) said the same thing. That 17-point decline is the largest Gallup has recorded in any country over a 10-year period since 2005. Gallup’s data points to a grim picture of America becoming decidedly more secular.

Not so fast. In February of this year, Pew Research conducted a survey showing a different trend: a marked jump in the number of adults who said religion was becoming more important. Thirty-one percent of those surveyed said religion was “gaining importance in American life.” That represented a significant 13-point jump from the year prior, and the highest mark recorded by Pew in the last 15 years.

Can these trends be reconciled? Perhaps not. Gallup is measuring respondents’ view of religion in our daily lives, while Pew is measuring perceptions of religion in American civic life. It’s quite possible Americans are getting less religious in our daily lives while believing religion is becoming more influential in the country. It wouldn’t be the first – or last – time pollsters found Americans were of two minds about an issue.

For full results of the Gallup poll, click here. For Pew, click here.