This recess week, Democrats were planning to go on the offense against Republicans in their own districts. Now Democratic infighting could distract from that effort.
Democrats were planning to hold town halls in red districts across the country to take advantage of many Republicans passing up in-person events on the advice of the House GOP’s campaign arm. Democrats were eager to call out Republicans for DOGE cuts and the threats their party poses to programs like Medicaid.
But Senate Democrats’ decision to support the funding bill muddles the message. Many House Democrats will now have to contend with constituents not just just angry at Republicans, but at senators from their own party, too.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici told NOTUS that Democratic constituents were angry and concerned about Senate Democrats’ funding bill votes.
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“We’re hearing from constituents about that nonstop,” Bonamici said. “They see it as a capitulation, and I do know that Donald Trump is gloating about it, and the House Judiciary majority, which is Jim Jordan, said Schumer is caged and Trump wins. That kind of thing, that’s not the message we need right now. For Democrats, we need to keep pushing back.”
Rep. Ro Khanna told NOTUS he anticipates voters will want to air their frustrations with Democrats at the town halls he’s hosting in Republican-held districts this coming week, but he doesn’t believe it’ll eclipse his overall message. He argued that the “bulk of the anger is still going to be directed at Musk, Vance and Trump who have the power and are making these cuts,” rather than at Democrats.
“We could still talk about the Medicaid cuts, the veterans being fired, the fact that park services are being discontinued. Ultimately, that message is what people will care about,” he told NOTUS. “We need to push [Senate Democratic] leadership also. This movement of energy is going to demand change, to stand up against Vance and Trump. And if others are in the way and they have anger expressed at them, so be it.”
While Khanna and Rep. Robert Garcia, are prepping their own events in red districts, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Association of State Democratic Committees and several Democratic state parties announced Friday that they would join forces for a “People’s Town Halls” blitz in GOP areas. The events are planned for eight swing districts in states including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“Republicans in Congress know they sold out their voters by backing the Trump-Musk agenda – and now they’re terrified to be in the same room as the people who sent them to Washington,” DNC chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “If they won’t talk to their own voters, then Democrats will.”
Garcia told NOTUS he had the idea after he heard that Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, advised members to avoid in-person town halls over backlash against President Donald Trump’s spending cuts.
“They’re cowards,” Garcia said. “They talk a big game about wanting to cut programs, and clearly they’re gonna have to cut Medicaid, and they have no interest in actually looking at their voters in the eye and telling them what they wanna do.”
Members have also teamed up with progressive grassroots groups to plan these town halls. Our Revolution is an official co-sponsor of Khanna’s events.
Its executive director, Joseph Geevarghese, said progressive leaders in and out of Congress had been meeting since before last year’s election to discuss how to mount a forceful opposition to the Republican Party.
Organizers and members agreed that Democrats needed to embrace the “citizen mobilization” strategy that the Tea Party movement excelled at in the early 2010s, said Geevarghese, who attended the meetings.
“How do we begin to recreate that kind of energy, mobilization on the grassroots side, focused both on Democrats and on Republicans?” Geevarghese said of the question progressives have kept asking themselves.
Instead of only focusing on mobilizing voters within Democrat-held districts, organizers and politicians have been targeting red districts to call out their Republican colleagues.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has hosted “Stop Oligarchy” rallies in Republican districts in Iowa and Nebraska. Rep. Mark Pocan also hosted a town hall in fellow Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s district where he called on him to be more transparent.
For its events with Khanna this week, Our Revolution reached out to its network of close to 30,000 progressive activists in California through phone calls, text messages and emails to spread word of the town hall, Geevarghese said. It has also instructed its local leaders to identify disgruntled Republican voters in their communities and invite them to the town halls. The group is expecting at least 500 attendees at each event.
Not every Democrat agrees with the strategy of holding events in red districts. While Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said he admires his colleagues’ efforts, he’s not sure if this is the way to reach voters.
“I tend to focus on my own district rather than other people’s districts,” Subramanyam, who has been holding his own town halls, said. “You’re probably going to end up with people at that town hall who generally agree with the member that’s there rather than the people who are there to see their member of Congress … I may be wrong and maybe this works out.”
House Democrats are preparing to hear from their constituents about the continuing resolution. If the voters are mad about the Senate, some lawmakers said they’d pivot back to discussing their own “no” votes.
“I’m going to tell them that the House stood strong,” Rep. Becca Balint said. “That’s what I’m going to tell them.”
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Tinashe Chingarande and Amelia Benavides-Colón are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows. Daniella Diaz is a reporter at NOTUS.
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