U.S. Citizens Blame Trump for the Shutdown Chaos

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, vice president of the German Marshall Fund's Berlin office, explained to BILD that the polls would probably leave Trump cold: "This is a power struggle in which it is now a question of who's first to twitch, i.e. who's willing to compromise. Here the president is currently in a weaker position because many Americans blame him for the government's standstill and the Republican front in Congress is crumbling. But Trump wouldn't be Trump if he didn't stand up to all the centrifugal forces."

And Trump also has an ace up his sleeve, says Kleine-Brockhoff: "Various Democrats have voted for border fortifications before. If they're against it now, Trump can hold the zigzag course against them. It doesn't go down well with voters in the middle."