After 40 days of the government shutdown, enough Democrats voted in favor of progressing a bill without their key demand -- no extension of those expiring Obamacare subsidies.

Sen. Angus King told ABC News he believed it just simply wasn't working.

"The Republicans made it clear they weren't going to discuss the health care issue -- the Affordable Care Act tax credits -- until the shutdown was over. We tried to keep working that for six weeks. It didn't happen," King said.

Sen. John Hickenlooper told ABC News after the vote, "there's no good choice."

"42 million people were being held hostage. ... They were threatened with hunger and starvation for the SNAP program," Hickenlooper said. "No matter what the courts said, he’s going to go back and fight it and tie it up forever. There’s no good solution," he claimed of the Trump administration.

Democrats were able to secure a vote in the coming weeks on health care. Hickenlooper says the party sees it as an opportunity to dare Republicans to vote against lowering health care costs for Americans.

-ABC News' Rachel Scott, Isabella Murray, Allison Pecorin

The Senate adjourned late Sunday evening after clearing a key hurdle on government funding.

The Senate will return for a session on Monday at 11 a.m., where they're expected to continue working to process this bill.

Sunday's vote shows that this bill has the support it needs to pass. What we don't know right now is how long it will take for the Senate to move this bill. Without the unanimous agreement of all Senators to move things along, it could take hours or even days for the Senate to finish its work.

Majority Leader John Thune signaled that there will have to be some deal-making with Senators on Monday to get their support to expedite passage. But there's still some hope the Senate could complete work on the bill as soon as Monday.

Then it has to be sent over to the House. So despite major signs of progress, there's still a way to go before the government is back open.

-ABC News' Rachel Scott and Allison Pecorin

After 40 days of a standoff, the Senate on Sunday night voted to advance a deal that would move toward funding the government.

The bill advanced by a vote of 60-40, just barely meeting the 60 votes needed to keep it moving forward.

The vote was gaveled down to applause in the chamber at 10:49 p.m. ET.

Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, Jacky Rosen were the Democrats who flipped to vote for this bill. They join Democrats Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman and Independent Angus King, who have been voting in favor of a government funding bill for weeks. Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against it.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin, Rachel Scott and Isabella Murray

The Senate is expected to vote Sunday evening on whether to begin debate on a short-term funding bill that would reopen the government.

Multiple Senate sources told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that the bill would extend funding to Jan. 31 as well as fund SNAP and Veterans Affairs for the remainder of the fiscal year.

A senior Democratic senator told Karl there will be more than enough Democratic votes to pass the bill, although a majority of Democrats, including most of the leadership, will likely vote against it.

Democrats won’t get anything on the extension of Obamacare subsidies that they have been holding out for beyond a promise that the Senate will vote on extending them before the end of the year -- essentially what Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered more than a month ago and Democrats objected to.

Although most Senate Democrats are likely to oppose this bill, they are resigned to the fact that this part of the fight is over. They will take the battle over health care to the midterms and argue that Republicans refused to do anything for the millions of Americans who will see their health insurance premiums skyrocket.

In a letter filed Sunday, the Trump administration told a federal appeals court that states were “unauthorized” to issue full SNAP benefits.

As of Friday, at least five states said they already began issuing benefits, and another five said they began the process of issuing full payments after the USDA signaled than it would begin sending funds.

A lawyer for the DOJ argued that those states are “responsible for the consequences of that action.”

“To the extent that States decided to submit their files early — knowing that Defendants had appealed the Court’s injunction and intended to seek a stay, and in the face of direction to the contrary — they are responsible for the consequences of that action.”

In a late night published Saturday, the The Trump administration demanded that any states working to provide full food stamp benefits via SNAP stop any steps they were taking to do so.

-ABC News’ Peter Charalambous