The Senate on Tuesday, as expected, failed to approve a GOP stopgap to keep the government funded or a Democratic alternative, edging the government closer to a midnight shutdown.

The votes came at the end of a day notable for the lack of public work being done by either party to prevent a shutdown.

Normally, the hours and days before the prospect of a shutdown on Capitol Hill are filled with scenes of lawmakers and aides scurrying about to negotiate possible settlements.

But after a meeting at the White House on Monday between President Trump and congressional leaders from both parties failed to make any headway, Tuesday was all about messaging and questions over how long the latest shutdown might last.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said the shutdown could go “beyond a week or so.”

“We’re just so far apart; we’re no closer today than we were a month ago,” he said.

Sixty Senate votes were needed to pass the funding bills. The GOP bill approved in September by the House funding the government through Nov. 21 won three Democratic votes, one of which came from Sen. Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, but failed 55-45.

A Democratic alternative, which would have needed House approval anyway to get to President Trump’s desk, failed in a 47-53 vote.

Senators say they’ll keep their staffs working through Friday and possibly through the weekend in expectation of successive votes to reopen the government — votes that will be crafted mainly as messaging vehicles to pin blame for the shutdown on one party or the other.  

There’s little chance of Republican and Democratic leaders sitting down for a real negotiation until the shutdown drags on for several days.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday he won’t negotiate with Democrats over their funding demands until they agree to reopen the government.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) warned that Democrats are prepared to keep federal departments and agencies shuttered indefinitely until Republicans agree to address rising health care premiums due to the expiration of enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

Senate Republicans plan to force repeated votes on the 24-page, House-passed bill that would fund the government until Nov. 21, a clean continuing resolution, even though Senate Democrats rejected it again Tuesday on a mostly party-line vote.

Thune says the House-passed stopgap funding bill is the only viable legislative vehicle to reopen the government before next week as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doesn’t plan to reconvene the House before Tuesday.

He rejected the idea of bringing House members back to the Capitol to pass a different funding bill.

“I don’t know what the House can do that they haven’t already done,” he said, noting the seven-week continuing resolution passed by the House is “sitting here in the Senate” and “ready to be signed into law by the president.”

He said Democrats “are going to have to be the ones that have to explain … why the government is shut down.”

Thune ruled out the prospect of negotiating with Schumer on an alternative bill to reopen the government.

“The negotiation happens when government is open,” he told reporters Tuesday.

Schumer told reporters Democrats would vote to reopen the government if Trump asks Thune and Johnson to accept provisions to extend the enhanced health insurance premium subsidies and to prevent the White House from clawing back more congressionally appropriated spending through pocket rescissions.

Asked how long Democrats would be willing to “stomach” a shutdown, Schumer pledged that Democratic senators will hold firm until Republican leaders agree to their demands.

“Look, it’s in their court to solve it, it’s their shutdown,” Schumer said of his GOP counterparts. “They’re going to face tremendous pressure from the American people.

Schumer said he told Trump bluntly at a White House meeting Monday the president would get most of the blame because Republicans control the White House and Congress.

An NPR/PBS News/Maris poll of 1,477 adults nationwide published Tuesday found that Republicans would “get more of the blame” than Democrats during a shutdown.

The survey found that 38 percent of respondents said Republicans would be “more to blame,” while 27 percent said Democrats would deserve more blame.

But Republicans have favorable polls to point to, as well.

A New York Times/Siena poll of 1,313 registered voters nationwide found that 65 percent of registered voters said Democrats should not shut down the government, even if their demands are not met. The survey was conducted from Sept. 22-27.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said many Republicans view the Democratic demands as highly unrealistic, leaving lawmakers without any clear idea how to get federal departments and agencies up and running again.

“We’re not going to agree to their demands — $1.5 trillion. So how is my friend, Sen. Schumer, going to get government back open?” Kennedy asked on the floor.

A Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes talks by a group of centrists who have explored a possible compromise said leaders in both parties don’t want to give an inch of ground. The source said there is only a small handful of senators in each party who are willing to buck their leadership’s hard-line negotiating position.

“The numbers are so small because everybody has basically said we’re going to give our leaders time to prove what they can’t do,” the senator said, describing the latitude rank-and-file members are giving to their leaders on how to handle the shutdown.

The senator said “there’s not enough on either side” to cross the aisle and pass any government funding measure anytime soon.

Any proposal to reopen the government would need 60 votes.

Republicans control 53 seats and likely need at least eight Democratic votes to reopen government as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an outspoken fiscal conservative, routinely opposes short-term funding bills.

A group of Democratic centrists are anxious about how long the shutdown will last and how the Trump administration will use it as a justification to fire thousands of additional federal workers and to slash programs that are “not consistent with the president’s priorities.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who voted for the House GOP funding measure, said a prolonged shutdown would give Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought an opportunity to implement Project 2025, the controversial conservative blueprint for overhauling the federal government.

“The president has a lot of levers he could pull. This is one we could pull, but why would we pull that lever? Because that allows him to pull a lot more levers,” Fetterman said.

“I think that would be the ideal for Project 2025,” he added.

Trump further fueled that anxiety Tuesday by threatening “irreversible actions” to harm Democratic priorities.  

 “We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them. Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump told reporters at the White House.