Democrats ramp up town halls in GOP districts

House Democrats are ramping up their aggressive strategy of conducting town halls in Republican-held districts, vying to exploit the GOP’s advised moratorium on the events to make inroads with frustrated voters, pick up battleground seats, and flip control of the House in next year’s midterms.

A number of Democrats who ventured this month into GOP territory said they liked what they saw: anxious voters who are up in arms over both President Trump's dismantling of the federal government and the reluctance of the majority Republicans to provide a check on executive power.

Encouraged by their experiences, Democrats say they not only intend to return to those battleground districts, they're also eyeing plans to broaden their range in the weeks and months to come. The Democrats' campaign arms, in some cases, are helping to coordinate the effort.

"People are mad — they're mad and fearful that their health care might be taken away. That's the thing that I heard the most,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who recently staged town halls in three California districts held by Republican lawmakers — Reps. Ken Calvert, Young Kim and David Valadao — where he estimated crowds of roughly 1,000 people. 

“It was just frustration of: What are you going to do to stop this?” 

Khanna acknowledged that the crowds were made up largely of Democrats and independents who reside in those purple districts. “But they're angry and mobilized,” he said.

“And if you have 1,000 people in your district that are angry and mobilized like that — and knocking on doors and ready to get people out — that should be a huge red flag for these Republicans.”

Khanna is hardly alone.

In Wisconsin, Rep. Mark Pocan (D) has already staged two town halls in the neighboring district held by GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, and a third just outside of it, with plans to do more. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has joined a national tour, launched by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), that’s dipped into Republican districts, including one in Colorado represented by first-term GOP Rep. Gabe Evans.

And in Maryland, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D) drove two hours from home to the expansive Eastern Shore district represented by Rep. Andy Harris (R), the head of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, where Raskin said he found 900 frustrated voters waiting to vent about the White House.

"People are outraged,” Raskin said. “It's a race between the anger of the people and the Trump administration's speed in moving to dismantle our democratic order.”

The aggressive gambit of diving into districts controlled by the other party is hardly ordinary. But Democrats say Trump’s unconventional approach to governing demands an unconventional response. And after House GOP leaders urged Republican lawmakers to steer clear of in-person town halls — an avoidance strategy adopted after voter outrage over Trump's actions erupted virally in some of those public forums — Democrats have stepped up their infiltration operations. 

"First and foremost, we're filling a void that's left by our Republican colleagues who have been told by their leadership to not face your constituents because what we're doing is not popular,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said. 

“And so as Democrats, we want people across the country, people in swing states, to know that when your representatives opt out of doing their job because they're trying to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, we're going to step in and we're going to fill that void no matter who you are.”

On Saturday, Frost was set to join Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) at a town hall in Michigan’s 10th District, where GOP Rep. John James is a top target of Democrats in the midterms. And other Democrats are also escalating the strategy in the coming days and weeks. 

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) dropped into Kim’s district in California on Saturday for a town hall. 

Khanna said he’s eyeing a visit to eastern Pennsylvania, where Republicans had flipped the seat of former Rep. Susan Wild (D) in November and Democrats want it back. 

Raskin, who has already left Maryland to visit Wild’s former district, has plans to venture even further to Long Island in the coming weeks. And Frost said he’s preparing a blitz of behind-enemy-lines town halls next month. 

The target, said Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, “is vulnerable Republicans.” The aim, she added, is “holding them accountable for the moderation they preach at home and coming down here and voting in lockstep to take away the services that taxpayers and their constituents depend on.”

Republicans have dismissed the Democrats’ strategy as both disingenuous and ineffective. GOP strategists are pointing out that Democrats are facing their own troubles at town halls, where some lawmakers have faced liberal voters furious that Democrats aren’t fighting harder against Trump and the flood of executive actions that have defined his first months in office.

Republicans also allege that the crowds at the Democratic events in GOP districts are orchestrated to exclude Trump supporters who might challenge them. In that sense, they charge, the town halls aren’t town halls at all. 

“In a desperate attempt to distract voters from the chaos in their own party, Democrats are resorting to political theater that panders to the far-left radicals instead of addressing the concerns of everyday voters who have already rejected their out-of-touch agenda,” Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said in an email. 

“No one is falling for their latest charade.” 

Democrats have rejected any suggestion that the cross-district events are staged or feature paid protesters. While some of the town halls have been orchestrated by liberal advocacy groups, unions and local Democratic officials, Democrats maintain that anyone is welcome to attend. Raskin said he addressed that very issue at the outset of his town hall in Harris’s district.

“I started by saying that the people who are showing up at the town halls are not paid protesters,” Raskin said. “But the people not showing up are paid politicians.” 

Pocan said one of the events in Van Orden’s district was organized by a farmers union that had invited lawmakers from both parties. No Republicans showed up. 

“The two minimum parts of your job are taking the values of your district to Washington and explaining Washington to your district,” Pocan said. “And if you don't do town halls, you're doing neither of those things.”

Van Orden declined to comment on the town halls.

Not all Republicans are taking their leadership’s advice and avoiding town halls. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) is one of them. She’s conducted a number of public forums this year in her state. On more than one occasion, the event was disrupted by shouts and booing from the audience, which she blamed on Democratic activists. 

“There was legitimate pushback at some of them, where people asked very pointed and good questions. But the screaming and yelling and profanities — that's just an effort to exercise the heckler's veto,” she said. 

Hageman dismissed the notion that some of the protesters might be Trump supporters who have soured on the president’s policies. 

“Oh, gosh no,” she said. “They don't act that way."