U.S. travelers could soon start to feel the pain of the ongoing government shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned on Thursday.

Duffy joined House GOP leaders at their daily press conference on Day 23 of the shutdown to talk about the difficulties Congress’ fiscal standoff is putting on the nation’s air traffic controllers.

The Trump Cabinet official said air traffic controllers he’s spoken with were ‘angry’ and ‘frustrated’ about being forced to work without pay — noting that Tuesday, Oct. 28, will mark their first full missed paycheck if a sudden breakthrough does not happen on Capitol Hill by then.

‘Safety is paramount for us. And so, if we don’t have the staffing levels in a tower TRACON or center, you will see us delay traffic. You will see us cancel flights,’ Duffy said. ‘It’s not moving as many flights as possible. It’s moving as many flights as possible safely. That is our mission.’

Duffy said that many air traffic controllers are already working under difficult conditions, noting they would get even worse if the shutdown persists.

‘If you have a controller that’s working six days a week but has to think about, ‘How am I going to pay the mortgage, how am I to make the car payment, how am I going to put food on my kid’s table?’ They have to make choices, and the choice they’re making is to take a second job,’ he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., noted that roughly 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers will work without pay the longer the shutdown goes on.

‘There were 19,000 delayed flights from Saturday to Monday and an additional 1,600 canceled flights during that same period. That number is only going to increase as the Democrat shutdown continues,’ Johnson said.

‘We are rounding into a holiday season, as we all know, and we’re in the middle of the height of the football season. This is peak travel time for the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to travel to football games this weekend, for example.’

The U.S. air traffic control system has already been dealing with years-long staffing issues, forcing existing workers to take on grueling shifts with little time off. But the shutdown’s compound effect on the current workforce could exacerbate longstanding issues.

It comes just over a month before millions of Americans are expected to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday and the end-of-year holidays a month after that.

‘I want to reiterate, we are all about safety. And we will make sure we work every day on that part of our job,’ Duffy said. ‘But again, I can’t guarantee you that your flight is going to be on time. I can’t guarantee you that you’re not gonna be canceled. It’s going to depend on our air traffic controllers coming in to work every single day.’

At another point, he blamed Democrats for resisting the GOP’s government funding plan for over a month and prolonging the shutdown.

‘I do think, in the Democrat senators’ hearts, they want to vote to open the government up. They don’t want to hurt the American people. But we’ve seen they have a radical base,’ Duffy said. ‘This is because Democrats are concerned about their own hide, and they’ve sold the country to the most radical element of their country. And I think that’s really shameful. It’s too bad.’

The government shutdown shows no signs of ending for now as Democrats and Republicans remain in disagreement over federal funding.

Senate Democrats, who are demanding any funding bill be paired with healthcare concessions from the GOP, have rejected Republicans’ plan — an extension of current federal funding levels through Nov. 21 — 12 times.

With just a dozen days to go until Election Day, a new poll in one of the only two states in the nation holding showdowns for governor this year indicates Democrats with a single-digit lead at the top of the ticket, but tight margins in the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger leads Republican rival Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears 52%-43% among likely voters in Virginia, according to a Suffolk University poll released Thursday in the race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

But the survey indicates Republican Lt. Gov. nominee John Reid and Democratic rival Ghazala Hasmi deadlocked at 45%, and GOP Attorney General Jason Miyares topping Democratic challenger Jay Jones 46%-42%.

Virginia and New Jersey are the only states that hold gubernatorial contests in the year after a presidential election. And the elections, which traditionally grab outsized national attention, are viewed this year as early verdicts on President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and relentless second-term agenda, as well as key barometers ahead of next year’s midterm showdowns for the U.S. House and Senate.

While Spanberger has held the lead over Earle-Sears in a slew of surveys since the start of the year, polls tightened recently after explosive revelations in Virginia’s attorney general race rocked the campaign trail.

Jones has been in crisis mode since controversial three-year-old texts — where he compared then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert to mass murderers Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. He said that if he was given two bullets, he would use both against the GOP lawmaker to shoot him in the head. The news was first reported a couple of weeks ago by the National Review.

Jones acknowledged and apologized for the texts, but has been facing calls from Republicans to drop out of the race. And the GOP is aiming to leverage the controversy up and down the ballot, forcing Spanberger on defense.

While the poll indicated that more respondents see the nation on the wrong track, more also view Virginia on the right track under Youngkin, which would typically buoy the party in power in Richmond.

However, President Donald Trump’s approval has fallen below 40%, suggesting a tug-of-war that could break for Democrats in the end. However, Trump also received the most credit from Virginians asked about the Israel-Hamas peace process – with former President Joe Biden only receiving credit from 4% of respondents.

More respondents also blamed Democrats than Republicans for the ongoing government shutdown – by 38-28%, while Trump, by name, was blamed by 21% of additional respondents.

‘Spanberger is trying to carry the whole Democratic ticket over the finish line,’ said David Paleologos, Director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. ‘However, the Democratic nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general are struggling in their respective contests, and they can’t seem to replicate Spanberger’s popularity, early voting ground game, or dominance over their opponents.’

According to the new poll, which was conducted Oct. 19–21, Spanberger led Earle-Sears among women 57%-38%, while only trailing among men by a single point, 49%-48%. Among Black voters, Spanberger led Earle-Sears 87%-9%, while trailing among white voters 52%-46%.

And the survey indicated Spanberger topping Earle-Sears by 15 points among those voters who identify as independents, and by 19 points among those who have already cast a ballot.

Early voting in Virginia kicked off on September 19 and the poll suggests that nearly a quarter of all votes for governor in the November election have already been cast.

Five-hundred likely voters in Virginia were questioned in the poll. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Millions of Americans who rely on federal food benefits could be among the next casualties of the ongoing government shutdown. 

Approximately 42 million people in the U.S. who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are in danger of not receiving aid come Nov. 1, when the program’s funds are expected to run dry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) warned state agencies in a memo obtained by Fox News Digital on Thursday.

More than two dozen states have alerted residents to possible lapses in funding. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency over SNAP benefits on Thursday.

‘It requires about $8 billion each month to fund SNAP benefits nationwide. When there’s no funding it impacts not just pockets of people, but it’s going to impact people all around the country,’ said Rev. Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World, a nonprofit hunger advocacy group that works with local partners to educate recipients about access to food.

Cho explained to Fox News Digital that some states will feel the drying up government funding more than others.

‘Yes, funding comes from the federal government, but the administration of it happens through local states,’ he said. ‘And so, when it comes to SNAP, states are on a little bit of a different rhythm in terms of how they’re conveying the reduction or the elimination of SNAP benefits. It is playing out a little bit differently from state to state.’ 

The longer the shutdown goes on, the less funding also becomes available for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program, which helps nearly 7 million vulnerable pregnant women and children under age 5.

It could pose a political headache for Democrats who have resisted agreeing to Republicans’ federal funding plan for over a month, demanding significant concessions on healthcare in exchange for their support.

‘We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. Continue to hold out for healthcare for illegals or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments,’ a USDA spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The House passed a seven-week extension of FY2025 funding largely along partisan lines on Sept. 19. The measure, a continuing resolution (CR), is aimed at giving lawmakers more time to strike a longer-term deal for FY2026.

But in the Senate, where several more Democrats are needed to break a filibuster than have been voting for it, progress has stalled, with the legislation having failed 12 times already.

Democrats are demanding that any spending plan be paired with an extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of 2025.

They have also called for Republicans to repeal the Medicaid cuts made in their One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) earlier this year.

‘Millions of American families are about to lose access to food assistance because Democrats are openly admitting to being afraid of their far-left base and refuse to reopen the government,’ House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital.

Thompson’s panel has jurisdiction over SNAP in the House.

‘We need to reopen the government, so we can put Americans first by making sure families can put food on the table and our farmers are supported,’ he said.

Democrats could also be faced with the political quagmire of having previously railed against Republicans moving to expand SNAP work requirements in the OBBBA, to now be blamed by the right for federal food benefits drying up.

The Trump administration does have some power to move existing funding around to help cover shortages during the shutdown. The White House moved research and development funding at the Pentagon to cover active duty military paychecks on Oct. 15 and reallocated some $300 million from tariff revenues for WIC earlier this month.

But any such fix would be temporary, as the two aforementioned adjustments have been.

When reached for comment about the administration’s SNAP warning, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee told Fox News Digital that USDA needed to tap into the government’s emergency SNAP reserves.

‘It’s time the administration do right by seniors, children and veterans and utilize the SNAP contingency fund to ensure benefits can be provided for November,’ ranking member Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., said.

The SNAP contingency fund currently has some $5 billion — not enough for an entire month’s worth of service.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters Thursday that he believed the White House would tap into that funding, however.

‘As has been the case in prior government shutdowns, the money can be found by the administration if they chose to do so. In fact, there’s about $5 billion available in a contingency fund for emergency circumstances just like this,’ Jeffries said. ‘But the administration refuses to agree to use it. Why? Because they want to starve the American people as part of their continuing effort to visit cruelty on everyday Americans.’

Democrats blocked a Republican-led attempt to provide essential government workers with paychecks amid an ongoing, 23-day shutdown, calling the bill overly selective and incomplete.

That bill, proposed by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Todd Young, R-Ind., failed in a 54-45 vote, where 60 votes were needed to advance the bill over the threat of a filibuster.

Only three Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, voted with Republicans. 

In addition to compensating federal employees and military personnel during the current shutdown, the bill would also extend relief to future instances where funding bills aren’t in effect. 

‘For fiscal year 2026, and any fiscal year thereafter, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary to provide standard rates of pay, allowances, pay differentials, benefits, and other payments on a regular basis to excepted employees,’ the bill reads.

Johnson had pitched his bill as a long-term solution.

‘I just hope, on a nonpartisan basis, we do something that makes sense around here for once,’ Johnson said ahead of the bill’s consideration. 

‘With Democrats continuing the Schumer Shutdown, they should at least agree to pay all the federal employees that are forced to continue working. The 2025 Shutdown Fairness Act is a permanent fix that will ensure excepted workers and our troops are paid during a shutdown,’ Johnson said.

Other Republicans blasted Democrats for voting against the bill.

‘It means Democrats don’t care,’ Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. ‘We know this is going to end sometime. The question is when. I guess it will depend on how much carnage the Democrats want to create. To me, they are in a box canyon, and they can’t figure out how to get out.’ 

Essential federal employees have been asked to continue working since the government entered a shutdown on Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass spending legislation to begin the 2026 fiscal year. Republicans have advanced a short-term spending extension that would open the government through Nov. 21. Democrats have repeatedly rejected that proposal though, demanding that Congress first consider an extension to expiring COVID-19-era supplemental funding for Obamacare health insurance subsidies. 

Republicans, who maintain that the health insurance subsidies are unrelated to the government’s short-term funding needs, have rejected those demands out of hand.

Democrats in the Senate have voted 12 times to defeat the stopgap bill. 

The shutdown looks poised to continue with no resolution in sight, prompting lawmakers to worry about key areas that are feeling the shutdown’s effects more acutely. The Johnson-Young supplemental package was the most recent attempt to provide a limited basis for relieving some of that pain.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Republicans in the House of Representatives appeared open to considering the Johnson-Young bill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told House Republicans during a lawmaker-only call on Tuesday that his chamber would be ‘prepared to act’ if the bill passed the Senate, Fox News Digital was told. Johnson has repeatedly said he would give lawmakers 48 hours’ notice to return to Washington before any votes but has largely signaled he will keep the House out of session until Senate Democrats pass the GOP’s funding bill.

Johnson also said on the call that he was skeptical the bill would get enough Senate Democratic support to pass.

‘If they oppose the Ron Johnson bill in the Senate, it will be absolutely clear that they are simply using the military and air traffic control and law enforcement and all these other personnel as pawns for their political efforts,’ Johnson said, Fox News Digital was told.

But other lawmakers had hesitations about partially reopening the government, offering relief to some workers and not others. That was the concern of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ahead of Thursday’s vote.

‘I have a concern about picking and choosing among all the federal workers,’ Blumenthal said.

‘I’m fine to support it. I think we need to pay our military, but I want to define and limit it in a way that provides pay to essential workers who serve our public safety and our national defense,’ Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal voted against the measure.

Democrats in the House of Representatives signaled similar lines of opposition to the idea behind the Johnson-Young bill. 

‘It’s not legislation that I support, because it appears to be more like a political ploy to pick and choose, giving Donald Trump discretion [over] which employees should be compensated, and which employees should not be compensated. All employees should be compensated and that will happen when we reopen the government,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Monday.

Senate Democrats also defeated other pieces of legislation that would open portions of the government. Last week, Democrats in the Senate voted against a 2026 defense spending bill ­— one of the 12 year-long bills normally used to fund the government.

Aside from the Johnson-Young bill, the Senate will not consider other pieces of spending legislation on Thursday. Senators are scheduled to leave Washington, D.C., on Thursday and will return at the beginning of next week.