Sophie Grace Clark is a Live News reporter based in London, with a focus on crime stories. She has also covered politics and entertainment extensively. Sophie joined Newsweek in 2024 from a freelance career and had previously worked at The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Star, OK Magazine, and MyLondon. She is a graduate of Middlebury College. You can get in touch with Sophie by emailing sg.clark@newsweek.com. Languages: English.

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Republican politicians have been facing criticism, protest, and outright anger from constituents across the country since the beginning of President Donald Trump''s second term in the White House.

GOP politicians have started to experience more of these emotions from voters since Trump and Elon Musk''s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began cutting thousands of jobs from the federal workforce, including jobs in foreign aid, nuclear science, and public health.

Constituent anger has also risen in the past month, even in the deeply red districts, around hot topics such as proposed cuts to social security, Medicaid, and veterans'' healthcare, as well as the White House''s hard-line policies on migration and deportations.

Fiery town halls have resulted, in some cases, in constituents being taken out and threatened with arrest.

Last weekend, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had six people thrown out of her town hall, two of whom were tasered by police, an action the congresswoman has defended.

Town halls usually occur during recesses, when members of Congress are able to travel back to their districts from D.C. to receive feedback from their voters and discuss how their political choices affect their region.

Democrats Step In

During the March recess and the current April break, many Republicans, under guidance from the GOP, have chosen not to attend their own town halls, leading to some Democrats, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and California Representative Ro Khanna, going to the meetings instead, even out of their home states.

"Republicans shouldn''t be hiding from the people they represent," Khanna told Newsweek. "Their constituents want answers about DOGE and threats to critical programs like Social Security and Medicaid."

Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science at the School of Public Policy at University College London, told Newsweek that despite the widespread coverage of these events, he is skeptical of whether footage of anger at town halls is representative of how the majority of Americans feel about politics.

"Most Americans are too busy with the demands of daily life to attend such meetings," Gift told Newsweek, "making it hard to gauge what the ''silent majority'' thinks about the current direction of national politics."

He added that although contentious meetings are making headlines, "These town halls tend to be dominated by committed partisans, exactly the kinds of individuals who will already show up and vote on Election Day."

Hoever, Nathan Williams, executive director at People''s Town Hall—a grassroots organization hosting town halls and dialogues across the country, often with politicians as guest speakers—disagrees with this sentiment.

He told Newsweek: "Democrats in 2009 and Republicans in 2017 both engaged in wishful thinking; that the pushback they were hearing at town halls were just a loud, unrepresentative minority. The midterm results each experienced speak for themselves."

Videos from town halls in Republican districts also question the idea that the people demanding their leaders stand up to Trump are typical partisans.

One video from Republican Chuck Grassley''s recent town hall in Iowa shows an older white male constituent in an American flag hat asking the 91-year-old senator: "Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?"

When the senator says: "I''m not going to."

His constituent asks: "Why not?... The Supreme Court said to bring him back."

Grassley explained that it is not Congress'' job to bring him back and from his perspective El Salvador is not subject to Supreme Court rulings.

The town hall, filled with older white voters erupted in boos, including one man who said: "I''m pissed!" And another man who asked the senator to "do your job."

Other reports from town halls detail veterans asking their Republican representatives to resist Trump''s cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs and Social Security.

At a North Carolina meeting hosted by Representative Chuck Edwards, veteran Jay Carey told the congressman: "I''m a veteran and you don''t give a f*** about me!" He was then escorted from the forum.

The congressman responded: "And you wonder why folks don''t want to do town halls anymore?"

The Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Association of State Democratic Chairs and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have capitalized on this sentiment from Republicans by launching their own People''s Town Hall initiative, unrelated to Williams'' People''s Town Hall.

DNC Chair Ken Martin told Newsweek: "We all see the writing on the wall—Republicans have a very short window before Americans kick them out of office for enabling the Donald Trump con job, which is why they''re hiding scared in their bunkers.

"The voters we''re hearing from don''t want billionaires getting tax breaks funded by destroying healthcare, they don''t want higher prices, and they don''t want a recession."

Martin made it clear that "Democratic leaders will continue heading to Republican-held districts across the country to give the American people a platform to voice their outrage and opposition.

"Our government must serve the people—not ignore them. Republicans will either learn that lesson now or at the ballot box."

DNC town halls have drawn large crowds in typically red states of Ohio and Tennessee, as well as in swing states Arizona and Pennsylvania, which both went for Trump in 2024.

Senator Elizabeth Warren received cheers from Tennessee voters when she spoke to 1,500 people at the DNC People''s Town Hall in Nashville.

"When they make these cuts to our public schools, does that public money go into your pockets, Tennessee?" Warren asked the crowd.

To which they responded: "No!"

Voters in Ohio expressed their gratitude to Walz for coming to speak with them when they felt as if their Republican Congressman Mike Rulli would not.

Rhonda Axelrod told WFMJ: "He''s in the trenches with us. He gets it. I feel like I''m finally being listened to."

Retiree Dale Kennedy told the outlet: "These prices aren''t coming down—not with Trump''s tariffs. It''s nice to hear Democrats talk about what we can actually do."

Town halls have gone from local events to national news due to videos of the meetings being shared across social media.

Gift told Newsweek: "One viral moment can be enough to catapult a politician or an issue into the national spotlight, for better or worse."

Voters are not only frustrated with the Trump administration, but are also upset about their representatives failing to meet with them.

Republican Senator Jim Banks skipped a town hall organized by his constituents in Indiana in late March and sent doughnuts to the waiting crowd instead, whom he accused of being Democrats.

One person waiting in line for the event said to the doughnut delivery person: "Tell [the senator] to go to hell."

Democrats are not immune from criticism at town halls either, and many of the party''s members of Congress have been confronted by angry voters at their constituent events.

An exasperated voter told Democratic Congresswoman Laura Friedman at a California town hall this week: "I don''t believe that you have pushed hard enough. I don''t believe that you have fought hard enough."

Khanna wrote in an op-ed for MSNBC that one of the most frequent questions he is asked by voters is what Democrats are doing right now.

"People are also fed up with the Democrats and want the party to do more," Khanna told Newsweek: "That''s why I held three town halls in Republican-held districts in California and why I''m heading to town halls in red districts in New Jersey and Nebraska."

"Across party lines, most Americans expect their elected leaders to meet with them, listen to them, and be accountable for their actions. It''s a core part of the job of being an elected representative," Williams of People''s Town Hall told Newsweek.

"Politicians who don''t like hearing criticism from the people they work for—their constituents—should look for another line of work."

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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