The Roll Up: November 11, 2025 

TL;DR: Social media lit up late Sunday night at word of a potential deal between Republicans and a handful of Democratic senators to fund the government and end the shutdown. Democrats online were furious some of their own caved and made the deal after scoring big electoral victories just five days earlier. Social media posts about the eight senators who voted for the deal were not kind. Here's what we know:

Word that Democratic senators were ready to vote to support the Republican plan first hit social media late afternoon Sunday. Reporters who had gotten word of the deal started to post that the shutdown was close to ending--thanks to eight Democrats willing to accept what the Republicans were offering. The senators who ultimately voted to accept the deal were Virginia's Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Pennsylvania's John Fetterman, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen from Nevada and Angus King, a Maine independent who typically votes with the Democrats.

Reaction online to the deal was harsh, with critics focused on Democratic leadership as a whole and on the individual senators. A Rolli IQ analysis of posts from Sunday into Monday shows overwhelmingly negative reaction when searching the terms "Democrat" and "Senators," with more than three-quarters of posters unhappy about the votes and only 13 percent in favor. 

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "Democrat" and "Senators" Nov. 9-10, 2025

Rolli IQ's AI summarized the negativity as centered on not only the decisions by these senators to vote with the Republicans, but a deep sense of betrayal felt by many posters. Many criticized the decision not to hold out and fight longer, particularly after Democratic victories in the elections last Tuesday.  

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary AI analysis for "Democrat" and "Senators" Nov. 9-10, 2025

One interesting note was how quickly word of the deal spread on one particular social media platform, dwarfing the others examined by Rolli IQ. Reddit was clearly the place many turned to vent their frustrations about the deal, interacting with each other rapidly Sunday afternoon into Monday. The Rolli IQ Engagement Graph for the terms "Democrat" and "senators" show that sharp rise on Reddit, while the other platforms took longer to reach their highest levels, with Twitter/X leading the pack, followed by YouTube and Bluesky.  

Individual senators were the targets of some blistering attacks that came at a much higher level than usual for these politicians, few of which usually share the spotlight on social media. Rolli IQ analysis shows Virginia senator Tim Kaine is perhaps the clearest example of how much attention social media users brought to bear on those Democrats who made the vote possible. Two figures below taken a year apart show the impact of Kaine's vote. His mentions on social media Sunday and Monday this year were up nearly a hundredfold over the same two-day period last year, with engagement on his name up even more. While Kaine generated only single digit positive engagement both years, negative posts about him rose by 50 percent. Kaine received the most attention of any of the eight Democrats who voted for the compromise, perhaps because of his prominence in 2016 as Hillary Clinton's pick to be her running mate. 

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "Tim" and "Kaine" Nov. 9-10, 2024

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "Tim" and "Kaine" Nov. 9-10, 2025

Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman is no stranger to the wrath of online commenters. His sometimes erratic behavior and unpredictability with his votes have often angered Democrats and pleased Republicans. While Rolli IQ shows Fetterman's total mention did not rise a great deal between the same two-day period last year and this year, the engagement with posts about him jumped considerably. Perhaps to be expected, both his positive and negative sentiments rose, with Democrats showing their anger and Republicans showing their delight. 

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "John" and "Fetterman" Nov. 9-10, 2024

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "John" and "Fetterman" Nov. 9-10, 2025

Perhaps most interesting of the eight senators who voted on the Republican deal is Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. Despite being the senior senator for her state (along with junior senator Jacky Rosen, who also voted for the compromise) Cortez Masto had almost no prominence on social media. While she received the least attention this week on her vote, she rose from a level of mentions and engagements a year ago that is nearly too low to measure. 

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "Catherine" and "Cortez" and "Masto" Nov. 9-10, 2024

Rolli IQ Sentiment Summary for "Catherine" and "Cortez" and "Masto" Nov. 9-10, 2025 

One final visual clue about the negative reception this vote received is a look at the Rolli IQ Sentiment Map generated for the terms "Democrat" and "senators." While the left side of the map shows the handful of positive posts about the deal (indicated by the green lines to the "thumbs up" icon), it's clear from the massive group of red lines going to the "thumbs down" icon that the defection of these senators was very poorly received by most posters.

Rolli IQ Sentiment Map for "Democrat" and "Senators" Nov. 9-10, 2025

Rolli IQ Emotion Map for "Canada" and "trade" 2025

The bottom line is that the analysis using Rolli IQ to look at social media posts following the compromise in the U.S. Senate shows a huge increase in posts about the Democratic senators who agreed to vote with Republican, with most of those posts showing unhappiness with the compromise.