With just hours until the government shutdown becomes the longest in U.S. history, Senate Democrats privately agonized behind closed doors Tuesday about bringing it to an end.

A two-hour-plus lunch meeting ended without a clear consensus on an endgame for the 35-day standoff, even after several senators involved in increasingly serious bipartisan negotiations laid out their thinking during the lunch, according to multiple attendees.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emerged from the long meeting and signaled that his party isn’t yet ready to surrender — guaranteeing the shutdown would surpass the roughly 34-day, 20-hour shutdown that ended in January 2019.

“Families are opening their health care bills and wondering how they’ll pay them. That’s the reality. So we’re going to keep fighting day after day, vote after vote, until Republicans put working families ahead of the wealthy few,” Schumer told reporters.

But two people granted anonymity to discuss caucus dynamics estimate that about a dozen Democrats now privately believe it’s time to reopen the government and then use the coming weeks to increase pressure on Republicans to address their core demand: an extension of key health insurance subsidies.

Pressed on where his caucus stands after the long lunch, Schumer said only, “We’re exploring all the options.”

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said he thought there was some progress made during the lengthy meeting. But he acknowledged a crucial “difference in opinion” remains over whether Democrats should vote to reopen the government without a concrete legislative plan to extend the subsidies for those who buy plans on Affordable Care Act exchanges.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said the senators involved in the bipartisan talks “made their case” but added “you need to have an agreement and not just discussions.”

He added, “When and whether we get there is an unknown.”

The note of caution and uncertainty stood in counterpoint to the rising expectations among Republicans that the shutdown could be put on a glide path toward resolution later this week.

Several Senate Democrats emerged from the lunch grim-faced and tight-lipped, a shift from the start of the shutdown when Democrats were unified behind a common message: that Republicans had to at least negotiate with them in order to win their votes.

“What’s the point of being in the Senate minority if you don’t use your power to get something?” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview, accusing Republicans of “basic bullying tactics.”

But the weeks of political trench warfare have taken a toll on senators — not to mention the rising toll of the shutdown on their constituents. President Donald Trump threatened to defy a court order to pay federal food aid Tuesday before his administration contradicted that message. Meanwhile, his Transportation secretary warned of mounting travel disruptions in the coming week as unpaid air traffic controllers and security officers call off work.

The Democratic lunch started just after the Senate rejected a House-passed stopgap bill for a 14th time. As in the previous 13 votes, only Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada broke ranks with fellow Democrats, as did Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

While the vote count remained static, there has been palpable movement among the rank-and-file Democrats who have been negotiating with Republicans over a shutdown solution that would fall short of the demands most of their colleagues have been making for more than a month.

A group of about 10 Senate Democrats met in a Capitol basement hideaway Monday night, a gathering first reported by Blue Light News. Some members of the group met again through the day Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday that he has spoken with rank-and-file Democrats, including in a meeting last week with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, as well as with King. They discussed the various pieces that would have to come together to reopen the government, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the talks.

“There’s a line of communication,” Thune said.

The bipartisan discussions are focused around a revised stopgap spending bill that would keep agencies open until at least December, as well as passage of the full-year Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-VA and Legislative Branch spending bills. Those two pieces could be advanced together, with a Republican guarantee that Democrats would get a future vote to extend the insurance subsidies once the shutdown is over.

Some Democrats, including Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, are pushing for Speaker Mike Johnson to also guarantee a vote — something the Louisiana Republican has been loath to do as he argues Democrats need to reopen the government first.

Others want Trump to get directly involved. Republicans have said Trump will meet with Democrats on health care but only after the government reopens.

“President Trump should bring people to the White House instead of having parties in Mar-a-Lago, and make sure that people’s insurance benefits are not going to more than double and get everything opened up,” said Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), referring to a lavish Halloween party Trump attended at his Florida resort.

Trump has shown signs he has grown impatient with the shutdown, repeatedly prodding Republicans in recent days to kill the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule and take action on party lines. Senate Republicans have been invited to have breakfast with Trump Wednesday, where the topic could be broached, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private invitation.

But Republicans have other internal tensions to resolve — not least of which is the widespread opposition among conservatives to any extension of the crucial Obamacare tax credits.

Several House Republicans raised concerns on a private call Tuesday morning with Johnson and other leaders that Republicans should not help bail out Democrats from the failures of their 2010 health law, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the conversation.

They are also locked in an intense internal struggle over how long to schedule a funding punt. The conflict played out inside the Senate GOP’s own Tuesday lunch, according to two people in the room granted anonymity to describe the private meeting.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) strongly pushed for her preferred expiration date of Dec. 19, while hard-liners including Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) pushed for a deadline in early 2026.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), another appropriator who is advocating for a December end date with Collins, also clashed with Scott — an eyebrow-raising development that led one GOP senator to note that Republicans clearly needed “a longer family discussion” about the issue.

Several GOP senators also said during the lunch and in other recent meetings that any promise to Democrats regarding a vote on the ACA subsidies should also require a vote on a Republican alternative. That legislation would likely involve guardrails favored by conservatives, including a crackdown on so-called phantom enrollees, minimum out-of-pocket premiums and new abortion funding restrictions, among other provisions.

“If there is going to be a vote on a Democrat proposal, then there will have to be an offsetting Republican proposal as an alternative,” a second GOP senator said.

Mia McCarthy, Calen Razor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Jennifer Scholtes and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.