Fact check: What Democratic leaders voted for or against the 13 government shutdown-related measures and when did each vote occur?

1. What the competing claims say and where they diverge — a clear tally of assertions

The reporting supplied makes three central claims: first, that Senate Democrats voted against the 13th GOP funding measure and blocked its advancement on October 28, 2025; second, that only three senators who align with or caucus with Democrats voted to advance the bill (John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Angus King); and third, that the vote count on October 28 was 54 in favor and 45 opposed, short of the 60-vote threshold to proceed. These claims are consistent across the provided analyses and emphasize procedural failure rather than final passage, though language differs about who crossed party lines and the union pressure applied ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The hard timeline: when votes occurred and what the counts were

The materials identify a crucial Senate procedural roll call on October 28, 2025, as the latest, 13th, attempt to advance a GOP "clean" stopgap funding bill; that cloture motion failed with a 54-45 vote, requiring 60 to move forward. Reporting also notes adjournment on October 30, 2025, with no breakthrough and ongoing negotiations, meaning the October 28 vote was the most recent decisive procedural moment captured in the supplied analyses. That October 28 tally and the October 30 adjournment mark are the anchor points around which subsequent pressure and messaging from leaders took place ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

3. Which Democratic senators voted which way — the crossing votes and the holdouts

Across the provided accounts, the three Democratic-aligned senators who voted to advance the Republican measure are identified as John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Angus King (King caucuses with Democrats). Separate reporting lists additional Democrats who opposed the bill by name in prior tallies, including Angela Alsobrooks, Tammy Baldwin, and Michael Bennet, while other sources mention Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock as having supported a reappropriations measure in a different vote. The narrative is consistent that the vast majority of the Democratic caucus resisted the 'clean' CR, with only a small bipartisan defection noted on the October 28 motion ^{[1] [5] [2]}.

4. Political context and pressure: unions, leaders, and the narrative battle

The supplied analyses show competing pressures shaping Senate behavior: the nation's largest federal workers union, the AFGE, urged Democrats to accept a clean continuing resolution, while Democratic leaders resisted, demanding negotiations on broader priorities such as health care or other policy levers. Republican leaders, including Speaker Johnson, framed the Democratic caucus as obstructing a bipartisan majority that wants to end the shutdown, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune described ongoing conversations and cautious optimism for a deal. This is a classic legislative standoff where procedural thresholds and partisan messaging interact with external pressure from labor groups and public-service impacts ^{[3] [6] [4]}.

5. What the supplied reporting leaves unsaid and how that shapes interpretation

The analyses supplied are consistent on the October 28 vote totals and the identity of the three Democrats who crossed, but they omit a full roll-call list for every senator on each of the 13 votes and do not reconcile apparent discrepancies in which Democrats supported alternative Republican measures at different times. They also do not provide the precise text differences among the 13 measures or outline concessions on the table in late-October negotiations. Those omissions matter because the procedural distinction between advancing a motion and passing final legislation changes who is credited with resolving the shutdown, and public messaging from leaders exploits that nuance ^{[1] [5] [4]}.