White House staff secretary Will Scharf, left, adviser Elon Musk, joined by his son X Musk, center, and U.S. President Donald Trump appear for an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The Democratic National Committee and other campaign groups will roll out events in Republican-held U.S. House districts beginning Friday, aiming to focus attention on GOP incumbents advised to skip town halls amid blowback over President Donald Trump’s moves in his first months back in office.

The DNC, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Association of State Democratic Committees will hold their own “people’s town hall” events to highlight Trump’s record in the opening of his second presidency, the groups said in a joint Friday statement that mentioned declining economic numbers, job cuts for veterans and threats to popular federal programs.

The events will feature locally and nationally known Democrats, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was the Democratic candidate for vice president last year and is appearing at an event in Iowa Republican Rep. Zach Nunn’s district Friday.

Walz is also scheduled to appear at a Nebraska Democratic Party event in GOP Rep. Don Bacon’s district Saturday.

Republicans staying away

Republican members have largely avoided traditional town halls this year as Democratic-aligned groups have organized against Trump’s agenda and the work of White House adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce and threaten popular programs.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican counterpart to the DCCC, advised incumbents against holding in-person town halls in the face of fierce opposition to Trump.

“These increasingly vulnerable House Republicans are failing to do the most basic aspect of their jobs: meeting with the people they represent,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene, of Washington, said in the Friday statement.

“Voters deserve elected officials who will take the time to meet with and listen to them, but instead these House Republicans are hiding from their own voters to avoid having to defend their disastrous record of stripping health care and food access from the families, workers, and seniors in their communities.”

First batch

Democrats will target some of the most vulnerable Republican House members in the first batch of town halls during the congressional recess scheduled from Friday to March 24.

In addition to Nunn and Bacon, the incumbents in those districts are: Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Rep. John James of Michigan, Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri and Reps. Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania.

The Democratic groups intend to hold similar events “in states across the country,” according to the statement.

“Republicans in Congress know they sold out their voters by backing the Trump-Musk agenda,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said. “Instead of facing their constituents, they’re running scared and hiding from the people they were elected to represent. If they won’t talk to their own voters, then Democrats will.”

Threats against GOP members

Some Republican officeholders, including North Carolina U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, say they have received death threats as the political environment has turned increasingly hostile.

In a Thursday memo to media members, Tillis senior advisor Daniel Keylin said the senator, his staff and family members have been subject to threats.

“Democratic parties and established left-wing political groups protesting a Republican member of Congress is nothing new nor newsworthy,” Keylin wrote. “What is newsworthy is the volume of threats and harassment directed at members of Congress and their staff is the new normal and indicative of a much larger problem with the political discourse in our country.”

900 people crowded into Eau Claire's Pablo Center March 18 for a town hall with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

About 900 alarmed and angry Wisconsin voters, searching for an answer to their political helplessness, crowded into the Pablo Center in Eau Claire Tuesday evening to attend a town hall with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz hosted by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

At the event, voters said they were scared of how cuts made by the administration of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will affect their health care, children’s education and the future of the country. 

Taking place on the same day early voting started in Wisconsin’s spring election, which will decide the ideological swing of the state Supreme Court, Democratic officials repeatedly said that the April 1 election gives Wisconsinites a chance that few Americans will have this year — to reject the aggressive cuts to government programs and agencies that Trump and Musk have already made and promised to deepen. 

Musk has now spent more than $13 million supporting the campaign of Waukesha County Judge and former Republican attorney general Brad Schimel. Democrats and the campaign of Dane County Judge Susan Crawford have repeatedly pointed out the ties between Schimel and Musk. 

Schimel has said he doesn’t have control of how people spend outside money on his campaign, but in several campaign appearances, he has directly tied himself to Trump. He told a group of canvassers associated with the right-wing Turning Point USA that he’d be a “support network” for Trump, and said to supporters in Jefferson County that Trump was “screwed over” by the state Supreme Court when it decides against overturning the results of  the 2020 election. In a radio appearance this week Schimel alleged that elections in Milwaukee are frequently rigged for liberal candidates. 

“In the rest of the country, people are protesting, which is great, but essentially, they don’t have a way to fight back at the ballot box in this moment,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler told the Eau Claire crowd. “In Wisconsin, uniquely in this country, we’re the only state with a statewide election, all the way until November of this year, we’re the only state where we can go to the polls, recruit everyone we know to go to the polls and send a message to the GOP [against] this extremism, this assault by Republicans on our democracy.” 

Exactly 223 days after he was in Eau Claire for his second campaign appearance as the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, Walz pushed attendees to support Crawford in the election, criticized Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden for not holding town halls in the district and said he was searching for how Democrats can re-assert themselves as a party that makes government work for people. 

“We’re here for a very specific reason, we know what’s at stake,” Walz, who has made similar appearances across the country in recent weeks, said. “I’m not going to whistle past the graveyard here and tell you things are fine. I’m also having the most unsatisfactory I-told-you-so tour in the history of the world … You came here because, you know the fight’s still on, and you know that you love your country, and you wanted to be here in front of your member of Congress, because the First Amendment to the Constitution gives you that right and responsibility to address your congressman.”

During his remarks, Walz called Musk a “dipshit” and an “unelected South African nepo baby” before comparing the state’s April 1 election to cleaning the house, saying “America’s first chunk of cleaning is Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.” 

In a statement, the Schimel campaign said Crawford is being “propped up” by leftists. 

“Tim Walz, the leftist Governor of Minnesota and failed Democratic Vice Presidential candidate is now propping up dangerous Susan Crawford in an attempt to dismantle our state the same way he ruined Minnesota,” the campaign said. 

Prior to the event, a group of four men wearing Make America Great Again hats and other pro-Trump apparel tried to get into the auditorium before being asked to leave by staff. Republicans said the denied entry showed Democrats’ “hypocrisy.” 

Joe Oslund, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said the men were asked to leave because they were clearly looking for trouble. 

“Four individuals who arrived with the clear intention of inciting a confrontation were asked to leave the event,” Oslund said. “We welcomed more than 900 people in Eau Claire last night, and I’m certain that we had folks in the audience who didn’t agree with us on everything. We’re always happy to engage folks with different points of view, but when you show up to cause a scene, we’re going to save ourselves the trouble.”

While the April 1 election will be the first test across the country of the voting public’s mood after the first months of the second Trump administration, people in attendance said they were desperate for something more to do. 

During the event’s question and answer period, one man compared the Trump administration to Nazi Germany, saying this is “our World War II to save the world from Trump” before inviting people to a weekly protest outside the federal building in Eau Claire. 

Menomonie resident Shari Johnson said that after the November election she and a group of politically minded friends started having dinners to discuss ways to counter Trump. She told the Wisconsin Examiner that she’s found her answer, saying that on Saturday she’s going to start marching through her town wearing a six-foot tall inflatable chicken costume while carrying signs that promote justice and fairness in the political system. 

Helen Durden said she skipped work to attend the event because “I feel terrified, angry and lost. What do I do to fix this? Besides a vote, there’s got to be something else. There’s got to be something more. And I’m looking for answers from our leaders to help me figure out, where do I step in to make that change?”

Joe Wendtland, a teacher who lives in Chippewa Falls, said he attended because he’s trying to find ways to be part of the solution. One part of that, he said, is voting in a spring election he usually would have sat out. 

“Quite honestly, in the past, I wouldn’t have bothered with the coming up election. Just, I wouldn’t have shown up unless it was a presidential election year,” he said. “But what I’m seeing is the Republican Party and current administration is just chipping away at all the little options that are out there. And this is me saying, ‘You know what, I’ve got a responsibility to protect what we have.’ And this is one of the few ways that I can really make a difference, is to vote in this election. So I’m gonna be there April 1.”

During a question and answer session , attendees fretted about losing Social Security and Medicaid benefits, how cuts to programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will affect kids and the dismantling of government agencies like the Department of Education. 

Walz said that he believes the Democratic Party should respond to Trump by loudly acting as an opposition party, declaring forcefully that public service is noble and working to strengthen labor rights. 

“Look, I understand what I have. I have a platform and a megaphone, and my goal of doing this now also is I was hearing that primal scream of God dang it, do something,” he said. 

“They’re destroying our country, taking our freedoms,” he added, noting that Republicans are complaining about being called fascists. “Quit exhibiting fascist tendencies and we won’t say that.”