Downers Grove, Illinois
CNN
—
Democratic lawmakers have faced eruptions of anger at town hall meetings across the country this week, as constituents have coupled their fury over President Donald Trump’s actions with deep frustration over what they see as a feckless Democratic response.
Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego were told to “fight dirtier” and “get in the mud” with Republicans.
“We want you to show some of the backbone and strategic brilliance that Mitch McConnell would have in the minority,” a man told Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey.
“They should try actually fighting for once. They should try to actually be the opposition party,” an attendee groused to CNN at a town hall held by Illinois Rep. Sean Casten.
The sharp criticism from voters comes as Democrats are out of power across all levels of the federal government and lacking a clear leader, exposing deep divisions along ideological and tactical lines over the party’s direction. The schism emerging within the party on the heels of a contentious government funding fight has prevented the caucus from uniting behind a single strategy to counter Trump and attempt to make political inroads ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The tension between Democratic lawmakers and their voters spilled into public view days after the Republican-led House and Senate narrowly averted a shutdown by approving a short-term government spending measure — with the help of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and nine others in his caucus who cleared a pathway for the bill.
Eager to avoid embarrassment as Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk slash federal spending and remake the federal government, Republican leaders told the party’s House members not to hold town hall meetings during this week’s congressional recess.
Most Republicans heeded those calls. Those who didn’t — Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood and Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman, among them — faced heckling and pointed questions, including some from Republican voters, at their events.
Flood was asked how he “personally stomachs” limiting funding for medical research after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Carol Moseman, a Republican who voted for Flood, told CNN she doesn’t want Congress to give up its role as a check on the Trump administration.
“I want to hear that he and other Republicans are going to stand up for democracy that they’re not going to let Mr. Trump take over using executive powers,” she said. “We voted for Congress to enact laws, and that’s not happening.”
Hageman faced concerns in her deep-red district over federal spending cuts and frozen grants. Kindergarten teacher Tomi Sue Wille said she supports Trump’s push to dismantle the Department of Education but worries that crucial federal funding for special needs children won’t reach her students.
“I do believe that Congress needs to take some control in making sure how that funding is still distributed to the states,” Wille told CNN.
At another town hall, a voter who identified herself as a retired military officer and Republican, pressed Hageman on allegations of fraud in the government in a tense exchange.
“You are a lawyer, where is this fraud?” the voter asked Hageman, according to CSPAN video of the town hall. The voter added: “What company, what organization, what personnel are we going after?”
Hageman pointed to spending by the US Agency for International Development – which the Trump administration and DOGE are attempting to dismantle – as the fraud. “This is what it is. This is the spending associated with the fraud. This is the fraud, spending is the fraud,” Hageman asserted, to the dissatisfaction of the constituent and other attendees, who repeatedly interrupted her as she attempted to cite numbers.
A federal worker and Republican in Wyoming, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said GOP rhetoric about federal employees has been a let-down — including Musk’s “fork in the road” email offering months of severance pay, which the worker described as “a little off-putting.”
“I don’t think we’re all parasites” the federal worker told CNN. “I try not to take it too personally. I know what I do. I know how committed I am.”
Going into the week, Democrats took most Republicans retreating from public view as an invitation to meet with their constituents and drive a forceful argument about how Republicans’ government funding plan would slash spending on programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
But the anger that greeted Democrats at their own town halls left them returning to Washington next week without appearing to have gained great political momentum during their time at home – instead offering a vivid window into the party’s struggles during the first two months of Trump’s presidency.
The Democratic Party’s favorability rating among Americans stands at a record low of just 29%, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS earlier this month found — an outcome fueled in part by dimming views from its own frustrated supporters.
Democrats and Democratic-aligned independents say, 57% to 42%, that the party should mainly work to stop the Republican agenda, rather than working with the GOP majority to get some Democratic ideas into legislation.
Branding it a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has aimed to galvanize those looking for some form of political action with rallies across the country. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow progressive, joined the swing through competitive Western states Thursday – but, underscoring the party’s divide, that answer to Democratic voters’ demands for action drew public criticism from some corners of the party.
Ocasio-Cortez, at an event in Las Vegas, Nevada, said Trump has “handed the keys to Elon Musk and is selling this country for parts to the richest people on the planet for a kickback.” But she also had sharp words for her own party.
“We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us too,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But what that means is that we as a community must choose and vote for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class.”
At the town hall meetings, attendees who voted for Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump in the 2024 presidential election, said they felt let down by the party’s failure to show it’s up to the task of matching their furor and responding with force.
In Scottsdale, Arizona, when Kelly and Gallego argued at a joint event Monday that there was a path to convince Republicans to preserve Medicaid, Jacie Czerwinski had heard enough.
“When are they going to take the gloves off and actually do something,” she said under her breath. “They’re preaching to the choir.”
Czerwinski, a Democrat who owns a rock-climbing gym in the area, had called Kelly’s office multiple times since the start of the Trump administration. And when Kelly told the audience to leave voicemails to senators as a way to make their voices heard, she shouted: “Yours is full!”
The swing state’s two Democratic senators ducked an attendee’s shouted question about whether they support removing Schumer from his leadership post after his public support for the spending measure last week. “We’re focusing on this right now,” Gallego said, noting the town hall was billed as one focused on what Democrats characterize as a Republican push to cut Medicaid spending.
Quianna Brown, who said her 10-year-old daughter’s Medicaid coverage is at risk now that she is no longer in the foster system, pushed back on the senators who described cuts to Medicaid as yet to be determined.
“What do we do? We feel incredibly powerless trying to plan for our family. We can’t wait until it’s done. We need to know how to prepare what may come down the hatch. We are trying to shield ourselves before we’re wounded, and we don’t know how,” Brown said.
Kelly described Brown’s story as “incredibly powerful” and asked for her name in order to share it with Republicans in Washington. Gallego said Democrats “would all love to be able to snap our fingers right now and have that solution, but it’s not going to happen that way.”
“We have to fight them down. We have to grind them to the point where they give up on this fight. Because if you give an inch, they will take it all,” he said.
After the event, Brown told CNN she appreciated the senators hearing her out but wasn’t satisfied. “I wanted more. I think as a parent at any time when you feel that you can’t protect your kid, you want a game plan. Like what is the plan?” she said.
The senators, she told CNN following the event, were being “too business as usual.”
Jefri Knazan, who had taught in Canada but returned to the United States for family reasons and is currently on Medicaid, was so frustrated by how the senators answered Brown that she changed her question to push them to “be straight with us” on how to take the fight “to the next level.”
Multiple attendees took their blunt assessments even further in conversations with CNN, saying the party lacks a clear leader and an effective message.
“I don’t think showing up with hand fans at a speech does much,” said retired Navy veteran Tom Dyson, referring to signs Democratic lawmakers held up during Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month. “I think you have to take action. I think you have to speak out.”
For retiree Donald Bandy, frustration with the Democratic Party is an “understatement.”
“We don’t seem to be organized. We don’t have a coalition. We don’t have any power. Republicans control everything and everyone’s afraid of Trump. It’s what he says goes,” Bandy said.
‘You are not fighting!’: Voters demand answers at Democratic lawmaker town hall
At a town hall for Ivey, the second-term Democratic congressman, held in Forestville, Maryland, attendees lambasted the role Democrats, particularly Schumer, played in helping congressional Republicans approve the continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown.
“The message that was sent by Democrats in Congress with the CR catastrophe was clear,” a man who identified himself as John told Ivey. “It’s not that you are in the minority, it’s that you aren’t even working together on a shared strategy. And that is failure.”
Ivey listened as the man continued, raising his voice.
“We are not interested in hearing that you are in the minority – we know that!” John yelled into the mic. “We want you to show some of the backbone and strategic brilliance that Mitch McConnell would have in the minority. We want you to show fight and you are not fighting!”
Another constituent, Donya Williams, complained Ivey didn’t know the people in his district well enough — because he admitted earlier that he didn’t know who popular podcaster Joe Rogan was until the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.
“You don’t know anything about a podcast, and as a Democratic (lawmaker) who’s representing all of these people, you don’t know how to reach them,” Williams said. “So therefore, you don’t know us.”
Ivey countered that he and other members of Congress are trying to do more to connect with younger voters on social media. “The key is to make sure that we turn to each other and not on each other in doing the outreach,” he said.
Ivey kept his composure throughout the evening, drawing a compliment from one woman. But then she, too, turned critical: “We need you to be less polite.”
In the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, attendees at Casten’s town hall Wednesday night were largely complimentary of the congressman’s opposition to Trump. But, they told CNN before the town hall got underway, they were furious with Sen. Dick Durbin’s vote to advance the spending measure last week.
“Dick Durbin needs to be primaried in two years,” said Ben Holinga, a 43-year-old salesman and Democratic voter from nearby Willowbrook.
“I’m very upset with how Democrats in the Senate handled the continuing resolution,” he said. “They should try actually fighting for once. They should try to actually be the opposition party.”
Rick Lunt, a 68-year-old retiree and Democratic voter from Palos Hills, said he is happy with Casten and “wanted to be here to show him support.” But he said he’d like to see Democrats take more measures to show their opposition to Trump, even if they are purely symbolic.
Democrats could, he said, “propose a resolution of impeachment or something” to remove Trump from office – acknowledging that “sometimes just a symbolic effort, movement on that part, is enough to inspire the rest of us.”
Casten’s town hall was repeatedly interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters — with one protester who declined to share his name with CNN climbing on stage and refusing to leave.
Chants of “Casten” and “leave, leave, leave” rang through the room as some sought to drown out the protests, but after more than 45 minutes of interruptions, local police asked the congressman to end his event.
“The consequence of what you’re doing is that the good people in this room are going to decide not to come to town halls anymore,” Casten told protesters, “because it’s not productive.”
CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy and Danny Freeman contributed to this report.
