Article snippet: A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds substantially greater Republican risk in a Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress than the congressional Democrats if one occurs. Forty-eight percent in the national survey say they’d blame Trump and the Democrats in Congress. An additional 18 percent would blame both equally. See PDF for full results, charts and tables. As is often the case in Washington mud fights, political independents make the difference: They’re more likely to blame the Republican side by 46-25 percent. But there’s also a broad gender gap, with comparative GOP vulnerability among independent women and even among Republican women – notable results a day before the 2018 women’s marches on Staurday. Results among independents are similar to the 1996 and 2013 shutdowns; in both cases, the public generally – and independents in particular – blamed congressional Republicans. Those experiences send a clear warning signal: Both shutdowns were highly unpopular. Partisan gaps also disfavor the GOP in this survey, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates: Seventy-eight percent of Democrats say they’d blame Trump and the GOP caucus for a shutdown, while fewer Republicans, 66 percent, say they’d blame the Democrats in Congress. And women are 16 points more apt than men to say they'd blame Trump and the GOP. The political and gender gaps come together: While just 9 percent of Republican men would cast blame on their own side of the ... Link to the full article to read more