As Congressional Republicans meet with the President, Independents increasingly expect Obama to be the one to step up to the plate and end deadlock.

Almost every day since the beginning of the government shutdown, YouGov has been tracking the evolution of public opinion during the crisis. A clear trend has emerged: A large, but steady, number of Americans hold Republicans responsible for the shutdown but an equally large number, including a steadily increasing number of independents, think that the President is an obstacle to resolving the dispute.

Polling conducted October 3rd to 4th - in the first few days of the shutdown - showed that 35% of Independents thought that the Congressional GOP was the biggest obstacle to ending the shutdown, 33% said President Obama and 9% Congressional Democrats. Our latest figures, from October 11th to 12th, show that President Obama is now viewed as the biggest obstacle among Independents. 42% say that he is the biggest obstacle, compared to 29% who say the Congressional GOP and 7% who say Congressional Democrats.

Significantly the gap between the President and Congressional GOP has been expanding steadily as time goes on, indicating that the President's hope that most of the blame would fall on Republicans for holding the federal government 'hostage' in order to delay Obamacare has not been as successful as he would hope.

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Overall, however, the picture shows that Americans are divided over who shoulders the greatest responsibility for the ongoing shutdown. Adding together the percentage of people who blame President Obama (36%) and Democrats in Congress (6%), Democrats are held as responsible as Republicans in Congress, with 42% of Americans blaming Republicans and 42% blaming Democrats.

The percentage of Americans who say that they have been affected by the federal shutdown appears to have peaked, with 24% saying that they have been impacted. The number impacted grew steadily over the first week and a half of the crisis, but is now holding steady at around a quarter of the population.

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YouGov's tracking poll during the federal shutdown has allowed respondents to select all the people that they believe to be the biggest obstacle to ending the shutdown. If they selected multiple people, they are they asked which they blame most for the ongoing shutdown. Looking at the results showing who is held responsible for the ongoing shutdown, we can see quite clearly that the percentage of people responding 'President Obama' has grown 4% while other choices - for Republicans in Congress or Democrats in Congress - have remained generally steady. This has been largely driven by Independents, 38% of whom chose President Obama at the beginning of the shutdown, while polling from October 12th shows that 46% now say that he is an obstacle.

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