The government shutdown gets uglier at the end of this week.

With President Donald Trump traveling abroad and Congress still deeply divided over a path to fund federal agencies, a pileup of deadlines on and around Nov. 1 is set to put many U.S. households at risk of new hardship: Popular programs that provide nutrition assistance, early childhood education and air service to rural communities are now among those about to run out of money.

Thousands of federal employees will also miss their first full paychecks this week, so services like TSA screenings and air traffic control operations could be further stunted if those workers stop showing up, as was the case during the 35-day partial shutdown that ended in early 2019.

“Things are about to get worse,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned in a floor speech late last week.

And that’s to say nothing of the Nov. 1 date that open enrollment begins for Affordable Care Act health plans. That’s when people will start to see just how much their premiums are set to skyrocket because insurers aren’t confident Democrats and Republicans will reach a deal to extend enhanced tax credits before they expire at the end of the year — a central point of conflict amid the partisan shutdown impasse.

Trump employed a strategic — and unprecedented — maneuver to alleviate the first major pain point of the shutdown earlier this month, when he paid active-duty members of the military out of other accounts. Still, the White House has yet to take similar steps to fund several other priorities where payments come due in the coming days.

In Congress, some lawmakers are working to mitigate the shutdown’s effects on select services with piecemeal bills. But none of those measures are on the fast track to final passage.

As the shutdown hits the four-week mark and Thanksgiving fast approaches, here’s when cash is expected to run out for key programs if Congress can’t strike a deal soon.

SNAP food aid

Food assistance that more than 40 million people rely on — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out of money Saturday. And the Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to keep those food benefits going, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

At least 25 states are already planning to cut off benefits, which support low-income families.

Some lawmakers have been pressing the administration to tap into an agriculture contingency fund to pay out some of the benefits next month. That pot of cash only has about $5 billion left, though — far less than the roughly $9 billion needed to cover food aid through November.

Head Start

Federal funding will stop flowing on Saturday to some early childhood education programs supported by Head Start, the Health and Human Services program that funds education, health and nutrition services for more than 800,000 children under the age of six.

More than 130 programs are set to miss federal funding, spanning 41 states and Puerto Rico, and serving about 59,000 children, according to the National Head Start Association, the nonprofit organization that represents the providers. Loss of federal funding means some teachers won’t get paid and some centers will close.

After funding first lapsed Oct. 1, Head Start programs serving about 6,500 children didn’t get their usual cash.

WIC nutrition assistance

The administration already buoyed funding earlier this month for the federal nutrition assistance program that serves about 7 million low-income mothers and babies by redirecting cash from an account that funds things like school breakfast and lunch programs.

But the coffers will dry up Saturday unless the Trump administration taps another $300 million in emergency cash for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC.

Essential Air Service

The Trump administration has warned that the Essential Air Service — which subsidizes airline service to small, often rural, communities — is likely to run out of funding over the weekend.

Some airlines serving Alaska and other remote areas of the country might have to increase airfare to have enough cash to pay staff in the absence of federal subsidies. Residents and businesses in hard-to-reach areas have been sensitive to disruptions in the program, especially after many airlines stopped operating out of small airports during the pandemic.

The service is crucial enough that the Transportation Department tapped $42 million to avoid a lapse earlier this month.

Military pay

Members of the military will miss paychecks on Friday if Trump doesn’t intervene like he did earlier this month, when he paid active-duty servicemembers by tapping about $6.5 billion meant for military research and development efforts. But it could be hard to make the same move again since that pot of cash had about $10 billion left before the president pulled from it last time.

Trump does plan to continue using other funding to cover military paychecks during the shutdown, according to two White House officials granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pentagon officials also said Friday that they have accepted an anonymous gift of $130 million from a wealthy donor to help pay military salaries during the shutdown.

The White House has not disclosed how much money it believes is still available, however, and a multibillion-dollar payout twice a month could quickly drain the Pentagon’s leftover cash.

Federal civilian paychecks

Many civilian employees across government agencies will experience their first fully missed paychecks of the government shutdown Tuesday and Thursday, after some already went without compensation late last week since there are different pay periods for various federal offices.

Congressional aides are among the people who will feel the pain, with House staffers due to miss pay Friday. Their Senate counterparts are set to go without compensation the following week. The lawmakers embroiled in the shutdown standoff, however, will continue to get their salaries on schedule thanks to the Constitution.

The Trump administration has been looking for ways to pay air traffic controllers during the shutdown following his unilateral action to pay the troops. And while some lawmakers have proposed legislation to that end, Senate Democrats rejected a measure last week that would pay select government workers and active-duty members of the military.

Opponents of that bill argued that it would empower Trump to choose who gets to be paid and who must remain on furlough without a paycheck, strengthening the negotiating position of Republicans as the shutdown continues.

Speaker Mike Johnson has also said he would not call House lawmakers back to town to pass piecemeal bills to pay federal workers, arguing that it would “take the pressure off” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “to get his job done and open the government again.”

Meredith Lee Hill, Grace Yarrow, Mackenzie Wilkes, Pavan Acharya and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

The government shutdown has blown through missed paychecks, mass firings and threats of delayed public benefits. It will soon be voters’ turn to help bust through the impasse.

In less than two weeks, closely contested statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia will offer the first serious test of the electorate since President Donald Trump began his second term. If the shutdown does not end before then, returns will come in on the day it matches the 35-day record.

Whether the people’s voice will matter is another question entirely. Lawmakers of both parties said in interviews they were skeptical that the election results would move them or party leaders off their firmly entrenched positions. Many said they expected the outcome to only validate their priors.

“I don’t think any Democrats here are looking at the shutdown in the context of the margin of victory in Virginia,” said Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Democrat who represents the state’s close-in Washington suburbs. He predicted a Democratic victory could force Republicans to change course, not his own party.

Those predictions are underscored by the vanishingly small role the shutdown has appeared to play in both states as early voting begins. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat-turned-Republican from south New Jersey, said the shutdown will have at most “a tiny tangential effect” in his state.

“If they’re smart, they realize no one gains or loses a lot from it,” he said of the two gubernatorial contenders — Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

Even in federal-worker-heavy Virginia, the shutdown has been subsumed by a larger clash over Trump’s sharp-elbowed approach to cutting government spending and its impact on government jobs. A recent Washington Post-George Mason University poll found only 1 percent of respondents ranked the shutdown as the most important issue in that state’s elections.

The disconnect between the standoff in Washington and the attitudes of voters could scramble how the off-year elections are interpreted. Typically, they are seen as bellwethers for presidents and their parties.

Coming off their 2016 shock loss to Trump, Democrats were buoyed by big victories in New Jersey and Virginia in 2017. Republicans were hopeful during President Joe Biden’s first term after flipping the Virginia gubernatorial mansion and coming close in New Jersey. This time, the political lessons could be muddled.

It’s possible there could be a split result in the two gubernatorial races. Democrats see the shutdown and the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers as turbocharging their efforts in Virginia, where Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger is banking on a Trump backlash and tying Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to his administration’s dramatic cuts.

“Federal workers feel like this administration has been literally abusing them for months,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). “There is huge amounts of fear.”

Trump has been a major factor in New Jersey, especially after the president took aim this month at a key infrastructure project relied on by New York City commuters. But cost-of-living concerns have also been front and center. And in running to succeed two-term Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, Sherrill is working against the Garden State’s political gravity: No party has held the governor’s mansion for more than three terms consecutively since 1961.

Even within each state, there could be mixed results. In recent polls, for instance, Spanberger has run ahead of Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who has been dogged by the public release of text messages where he fantasized about the death of a prominent Republican and his family.

Nov. 4 will also see the climax of a high-profile mayoral race in New York City and a closely watched California ballot measure that would allow a redraw of congressional lines in the state. Neither result will map neatly onto the shutdown fight and will compete for attention with the big governors’ races.

Taken together, that has left partisans on both sides comfortable saying they have no plans to reconsider their positions on what could become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

“No matter what happens politically in Virginia or New Jersey or elsewhere, Democrats will continue to stay the course in our efforts to deliver for the American people,” said Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.).

“If Democrats had not voted to shut down the government, there would have been no furloughs or layoffs,” said Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) in a statement. She added that Democrats currently on the ballot “must now own the obstructionist values of their D.C. colleagues who remain focused on catering to their far left base instead of working for the American people.”

So far this month, lawmakers have cited conflicting polling showing that voters are blaming the other party for the shutdown. Most national surveys show the electorate closely divided on the blame game, with a small plurality saying Republicans are most at fault. House Democrats were recently heartened by internal polling of key swing districts from early October showing a modest increase in their candidates’ prospects against generic Republicans.

But polls are no substitute for elections, and on Nov. 4, lawmakers will see the most reliable measure of voter sentiment in two of the most populous states in the country. There are more than 18 million residents in New Jersey and Virginia combined, accounting for about 5 percent of the total U.S. population.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat whose home state of Maryland sits between New Jersey and Virginia, predicts that the results of the two gubernatorial races will be “a referendum on the Trump administration,” at least in part.

“And I think that people are going to come out and show their strong disapproval of the way Trump is conducting himself, including the shutdown,” he said.

But others had their doubts that there would be any lessons to glean that could help bring a historic standoff to an end.

“State elections are state elections,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) was even more blunt: “I don’t know what affects the shutdown, honestly.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

The Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to pay for federal food benefits, imperiling benefits starting Nov. 1 for nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

USDA said in the memo that it won’t tap a contingency fund or other nutrition programs to cover the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of federal funds at the end of the month.

The contingency fund for SNAP currently holds roughly $5 billion, which would not cover the full $9 billion the administration would need to fund November benefits. Even if the administration did partially tap those funds, it would take weeks to dole out the money on a pro rata basis — meaning most low-income Americans would miss their November food benefits anyway.

In order to make the deadline, the Trump administration would have needed to start preparing for partial payments weeks ago, which it has not done.

Congressional Democrats and anti-hunger groups have urged the Trump administration to keep SNAP benefits flowing into November, some even arguing that the federal government is legally required to tap other funds to pay for the program. But senior officials have told POLITICO that using those other funds wouldn’t leave money for future emergencies and other major food aid programs.

Administration officials expect Democratic governors and anti-hunger groups to sue over the decision not to tap the contingency fund for SNAP, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private views. The White House is blaming Democrats for the lapse in funding due to their repeated votes against a House-passed stopgap funding bill.

The Trump administration stepped in to shore up funding for key farm programs this week after also identifying Pentagon funds to pay active-duty troops earlier in the month.

USDA said in the memo, which was first reported by Axios, that it cannot tap the contingency fund because it is reserved for emergencies such as natural disasters. The department also argues that using money from other nutrition programs would hurt other beneficiaries, such as mothers and babies as well as schoolchildren who are eligible for free lunches.

“This Administration will not allow Democrats to jeopardize funding for school meals and infant formula in order to prolong their shutdown,” USDA wrote in the memo.

Congress could pass a standalone bill to fund SNAP for November, but that would have to get through the Senate early next week and the House would likely need to return to approve it. Johnson said this week if the Senate passes a standalone SNAP patch, the House would “address” it.

Some states, including Virginia and Hawaii, have started to tap their own emergency funds to offer some food benefits in the absence of SNAP. But it’s not clear how long that aid can last given states’ limited budgets and typical reliance on federal help to pay for anti-hunger programs. USDA, furthermore, said states cannot expect to be reimbursed if they cover the cost of keeping benefits flowing.

Republicans are barreling toward the upcoming Obamacare enrollment period without a unified plan to address the sticker shock that millions of Americans are likely to experience due to the expiration of key federal subsidies.

The lack of direction comes from the top, with President Donald Trump not providing clear guidance to his party on how he wants to deal with the expiring subsidies that could result in dramatic out-of-pocket price hikes for enrollees.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said he spoke to the president on the phone about a week ago to talk about a yearlong extension of the enhanced subsidies. He said Trump asked him: “Can’t we do something better?” But Van Drew said he replied, “Mr. President, we don’t have the time.”

Trump’s lack of urgency in extending the subsidies and his interest in a major health care overhaul — as he has now mentioned in a private meeting with Democratic leaders as well as with Republicans — is complicating GOP leaders’ efforts to address expiring health insurance subsidies that affect 20 million Americans without fully repealing Obamacare, according to four Republicans granted anonymity to disclose private deliberations. Hill Republicans will need Trump’s sign off to do anything with the Affordable Care Act subsidies, and they’re starting to run short on time.

On Nov. 1, most consumers can start shopping for next year’s ACA plans. But without legislation to extend the enhanced subsidies beyond this calendar year, those plans will appear on enrollment websites as substantially more expensive than this year’s out-of-pocket costs.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was noncommittal Thursday about what the president would do to address the potential spike and demanded Democrats first vote to reopen the government.

“I’ll just point out the irony in Democrats holding the government and the American public hostage over a health care system that they created,” Leavitt said. “Republicans have always said it’s a broken system, yes, but [Democrats] caused it, and now they want to shut down the government to fix it.”

Hers is a view shared by some in the president’s orbit. Many don’t believe Trump needs to embark on a rescue mission to save former President Barack Obama’s health law.

“I don’t think the president cares to save Obama’s legacy legislation that has proved to be a failure and an ongoing headache for everyone involved,” said a person familiar with the administration’s thinking, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “I do see a scenario where the president sees a pathway for a health care policy bill that could receive some bipartisan support.”

The expiration is largely not a swing state issue, but more of an issue in lower-income, deep-red districts where Trump has a loyal base of supporters, the person said.

“This isn’t a [Rep.] Mike Lawler problem, funny enough, it’s a [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene issue. They have room to weather the storm,” the person said, adding a note of caution: “But if constituents are being hurt because they are less fortunate on health care, there needs to be an answer to that.”

Republicans in the White House and Capitol Hill have no plans to change that strategy, confident that Democrats will blink and face blame for the funding lapse. Republicans also feel they’re making headway with the message that Obamacare is in need of rescue, because, as they argue, it’s grown too expensive and is failing Americans.

A person close to the White House, granted anonymity to describe administration officials’ thinking, said the GOP message will be focused on exposing Obamacare’s expense — and placing blame on Democrats for sunsetting the subsidies in a 2022 law they passed on party lines, the Inflation Reduction Act.

“Democrats have to be really careful, because they’re going to get exposed on one, how expensive Obamacare is,” the person said. “And two, they were the ones that put that in the Inflation Reduction Act, where the subsidies sunset.”

GOP leaders are trying to keep in pace with the White House and ensure Trump doesn’t give in to Democrats’ demands to negotiate a way out of the shutdown. The president this week, after a call with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson, reinforced their message that he would meet with Democratic leaders but only after they reopen the government.

Still, Republican leaders and White House officials are ramping up behind-the-scenes talks on a potential subsidies extension with conservative reforms paired with other health care policies, which would need bipartisan support to pass in Congress.

While congressional Republicans aren’t feeling pressure from Trump, some argue they also aren’t feeling pressure from constituents at home yet about the expiring subsidies.

“Right now my sense is that the vast majority of Republicans feel very little political pressure on the enhanced subsidy issue,” said a senior GOP staffer who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Our phones are mostly quiet, which is a clear sign Democrats’ claims aren’t convincing.”

But a swath of Republicans are getting an earful from constituents — and are getting antsy about an ACA extension deal, albeit with new restrictions on the subsidies.

“If it’s not too late, it’s damn close,” Van Drew said about finding a solution without disruptions during ACA open enrollment, which begins Nov. 1. Van Drew said that he argued to the president to extend the tax credits for a year to buy time for a better solution.

“For one year, let’s really work hard on this and come up with something innovative,” he said. The president told him he understood and that he would look into it, Van Drew said.

Some Republicans are also privately discussing the need for Congress, or Trump, to act to extend the window for open enrollment — especially to protect some of their most vulnerable Republicans up for reelection.

Johnson didn’t rule out that possibility in a brief interview Wednesday, simply saying he would not forecast any outcome at this point.

He indicated, though, it was on Republicans’ radar.

“If we can get the government reopened, we have lots of thoughtful discussion to have on that and other issues,” Johnson added.

Other Republicans who are in touch with health insurance companies suggest insurers could recalibrate premiums based on a deal that happens after Nov. 1.

“I don’t think it’s too late. I mean, I think the beautiful thing about modern technology is you can make adjustments,” Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.) told reporters this week. “And these insurance companies are very sophisticated, and they’ll be able to run these numbers off the bill very quickly.”