WASHINGTON: Democrats plan a series of town hall meetings in highly competitive US House of Representatives districts currently held by Republicans, aiming to tap into anger over President Donald Trump’s campaign to aggressively slash the federal government.

The move is an attempt to harness momentum from the eruptions at town halls last month against the Trump cost-cutting campaign led by Elon Musk and target some of the roughly two dozen competitive seats that will determine control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.

At those meetings, voters decried the Trump administration’s firings of federal workers and potential cuts to safety net programmes like Medicaid and Social Security in the Republicans’ budget resolution, which was passed last month.

Americans broadly support the idea of scaling back the federal government but believe Musk is moving too quickly in engineering the firing of tens of thousands of government workers, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.

The campaign, organised by the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Association of State Democratic Committees, will kick off next week in 10 competitive districts, a DNC spokesperson said. It will continue for the rest of the year in all 50 states.

“We’re filling a void that’s left open by our Republican colleagues who are too scared to show up to town halls in their own districts because they’re doing things that are not popular,” Democratic Representative Max Frost of Florida told reporters at a gathering of House Democrats this week. “That’s not fair to their constituents.”

The town halls will be hosted by local and national Democratic politicians, including former vice presidential candidate Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, the DNC spokesperson said.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2025