The Democrats receive the municipalities to listen to voters, set the supporters, but is they resonating their message?

Belén, Pa. – In a “town council” on Thursday in the hands of the National Democratic Committee, in a Church located in a district of Pennsylvania that the Democrats lost to the Republicans in 2024, the party’s leaders shot at the crowd when hitting the White House and the Republicans of Congress through Medicaid, the cuts of the federal government and other problems.

The municipalities are among the strategies that Democrats are using to try to excite their base against Trump’s White House, but attendees there and other events say they are still looking for the Democratic Party to face the most directly republicans.

The president of DNC, Ken Martin, speaking at the Bethlehem event, called President Donald Trump and the key advisor Elon Musk “cowards”, Coneje the crowd when frameing the work of the duo in marked terms.

“There is nothing moral about what these cowards are doing, and there is nothing moral about what we saw today in Washington, DC, such as Donald Musk: Donald Trump and its president, President Musk, decided to do, signing that executive order that eliminates the Department of Education, which will have a disproportionate impact on the community with disabled Trump and Musk and Musk.

And Maryland’s Democratic representative Jamie Raskin, who received among the strongest applause of any of the panelists, took a more rigid tone: “Do not let anyone tell you that we are in a constitutional crisis,” said Raskin.

“Because that is too passive. That is too ambiguous. This is an attack on the Constitution of the United States, and we will defend the Constitution of the United States!”

Republicans face fierce rejections in events in person

The Democratic Party states that these municipalities are celebrating as a way of listening directly to voters.

“The purpose of these municipalities is not for us to spread our message, but that we listen to people from this country at this time that face deep and serious impacts to their own lives, their neighborhoods and communities, due to what this administration is doing,” Martin told ABC News on Thursday after the City Council.

But Martin and others, explicitly, also emphasize the idea that Democrats are appearing and organizing these events while Republicans are moving away from organizing events in person or facing the fierce rejections of voters when they do. Some of the strongest applause in the Church on Thursday occurred when the speakers criticized the representative of the district, Ryan Mackenzie, who in 2024 turned the seat in the hands of Democrat Susan Wild.

Arnaud Armstrong, Mackenzie spokesman, told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday that Mackenzie has answered questions in events in person and would direct a telephone town hall on Thursday night to allow more people to talk to the congressman, including people with disabilities or seniors who could fight to reach an event in person.

During that phone, the City Council, Mackenzie said: “This is the best way I have literally reach thousands of people at the same time and be able to have this type of conversation.”

Disappointed Democrats

The municipalities arrive when Democratic voters show disappointment with their party.

A recent CNN/SSRS survey Taken at the beginning of March He discovered that 52% of the Democrats or the independents of the Democratic trend considered that the leadership of the Democrats is taking the party in the wrong direction, and that 57% felt that the party should work mainly to “stop the republican agenda.”

While waiting in the row outside to enter the City Council, some residents of the Lehight Valley region of Pennsylvania told ABC News that the actions of President Donald Trump approached their home or worried, but that they felt disappointed with the broader democratic response so far.

‘Very found feelings’ about the response of the Democrats to Trump

Carole Ostfeld, a teacher withdrawal from Allentown, Pennsylvania, came with a signal that said “hands out of Medicaid”. She and her husband David told ABC News who went out to the City Council to protest Trump and Musk, even for Trump’s actions with the Department of Education.

But he asked how they feel about the democratic response to the Trump administration, Carole Ostfeld said: “I have very found feelings.”

Her husband added: “It must be more.”

When asked if the messages of the Democrats are resonating with them, Carole Ostfeld said it is, but “as they say, you cannot fight against the City Council”, since the Republicans are in power.

Another assistant, Ann Frehette from Easton, Pennsylvania, said the news about Trump signed an order to dismantle the Department of Education, which came that day, hit near home. “I have a child at the university that benefits from a Pell subsidy,” he told ABC News. “And I’m afraid that Pell Grant will disappear, that money like that will disappear. It is in Medicaid, I think you can lose your health insurance. There are so many things.”

But the broader democratic response was also disappointed. Although it praised some individual legislators, including Raskin, he added: “I think that the Democrats in general do not, I am a Democrat, but my party does not seem to receive the message that was delivered last November. I would like people to face what is being done.”

Turn on the followers

That said, the City Council itself was, for many measures, a success, or at least, the Democratic speakers were able to light their followers.

All banks were full, with some assistants standing on the back or sides of the sanctuary; And the crowd gave stretching ovations to the speakers several times, particularly when, for example, Raskin talked about facing Trump or former Democratic representative Susan Wild criticized the titular representative.

People paid attention while the members of the audience shared their own stories and questions, and then applauded them hotly, encouraging their peers in a clear support show.

During a part of questions and answers from the City Council, attendees raised concerns about the future of Medicaid, educational programs and other issues.

Another assistant, Terri Neifert, told the crowd that she had lived in Bethlehem almost all her life and was disabled after a fall in a grocery store, which changed the trajectory of her life. She said she managed to obtain her title and support her family through Medicare, food banks and social security disability.

“If you cut Medicare, Medicaid, food coupons … I would lose everything,” Neifert told the crowd.

Neifert received a round of applause from the audience, and other attendees approached her after the event wrapped to thank her for sharing her story.

Asked by ABC News after the City Council of how he felt for then about the response of the Democrats to the Trump administration, Neifert, similar to other attendees, focused on the way ahead.

“It seems that it is going to be a fight, and a battle uphill … more public protests, more marches and Congress needs to lift its big pants and start doing its job,” said Neifert.

Leaving the road

Some Democrats or allies aligned with Democrat are taking a different tachuela from the municipalities, and going to the road.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent who is hunted with the Democrats, has been on the road for weeks with what he calls the “combat oligarchy” tour, making stops for demonstrations in districts of inclination to the right and left. The Democratic Party has shown support to its efforts, publishing publications on Sanders’ social networks on the tour.

On the Sanders tour, some attendees said they are disappointed with Trump’s response to Trump.

“They have to be a bit more hard,” said a “This Week Week” Jonathan Karl in the Denver event. Another was Blunter: “It ceases to be a lot of felpies.”

But, in a sign that manifestations can be a successful tactic for Democrats to reach their base, they are attracting thousands of people. The appearance of Sander in Denver, together with the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., brought more than 30,000 attendees.

Sanders said it was the largest demonstration he has received, bigger than the demonstrations in his two presidential careers.

Sanders himself has his own criticism for the Democratic Party, telling Karl in an interview in “this week” by ABC News that Democrats should have done more for workers when they had control of the Senate.

“And since then, do I think the Democrats have been effective to gather the American people, to stop Trump’s movement towards the oligarchy and authoritarianism? No, I don’t,” Sanders told Karl.

Donna Brazile, a former DNC president and ABC news collaborator, said “this week” after Sanders’ interview, “Bernie Sanders is filling a void, a great emptiness that remains, of course, of course, the defeat of Kamala Harris last year by Donald Trump. This emptiness must be full because there is so much anger, not only in red districts, but also in the blue districts.”

That void is one that the Democrats hope to fill with these events.

Martin, asked about ABC News after the Belén City Council if I thought that the messages of the Democrats will resonate in the Republican districts or with the Democrats themselves, said that it was not really the point.

“It’s not really about the message that resonates,” Martin said. “What it is about is listening to people. Listening to the concerns of the Americans at this time throughout this country, who deserves to be heard, right?”

Martin later added: “We are going to fill a void for them, and we are going to talk to more people throughout this country.”

Hannah Demissie of ABC News, Isabella Murray, Jonathan Karl, Meghan Mstry and Quinn Scanlan contribution to this report.