They’re happening: “empty chair” town halls in Republican districts pretty much all over the place. This weekend we’ve got reports in Columbus, Ohio, for Sens. Moreno and Husted, on Maryland’s eastern shore, where Rep. Jamie Raskin (D) had to show up in place of Rep. Andy Harris (R), in Little Rock for Rep. French Hill, Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. John Boozman, and in Lexington for Rep. Andy Barr. In Billings, nearly 1,000 showed up for no-shows Sen. Daines, Sen. Sheehy and Rep. Downing, and about 300 came for Daines, Sheehy and Rep. Zinke in Missoula. People turned out in Fairbanks, Juneau, Anchorage and other towns in Alaska for no-shows Rep. Begich and Sen. Sullivan. Another big turnout for no-show Rep. Darrell Issa outside San Diego. More “empty chair” town halls in Indiana, with no-shows from Sen. Banks, Sen. Young and Rep. Stutzman. (Banks sent donuts.)
These are, I must say, quite ingenious. Almost all of these are very red districts. And they’re not a few people showing up holding signs. The one in Little Rock had 800 attendees. There were reportedly 1,000 in Lexington. The others seem to have had comparable numbers, if not quite that many. When people want town halls because they want to express displeasure at their Trump-Elon-supporting members of Congress, it’s pretty striking that you can get this kind of turnout when those folks are not even going to be there. These events create big, fat news pegs for stories and conversation about the fact that Republicans are refusing to face their constituents. On top of that, they’re powerful organizing events. It’s basically all win.
From anecdotal reports and eyeballing photos, the attendees seem to be mostly middle-aged and predominantly white. That’s not surprising. That’s basically the Democrats’ suburban normie high-voter-turnout base.
Meanwhile AOC and Bernie Sanders toured through Colorado and Arizona drawing legitimately huge crowds which seemed, again just looking at crowd photos, to have a broader age range. I don’t think that’s surprising. They were billed as notional “town halls” but they were actually pretty large outdoor rallies with top draws from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Hear of a town hall in your long-suffering red jurisdiction? Let me know.
