Democrats draw on renewed energy in the fight against Trump

In the red state of Montana on Wednesday, a crowd swelled for two political stars of the left who vowed to “fight oligarchy” in President Donald Trump’s administration. That night, in a Midwestern swing district, a congresswoman saw her largest ever town hall crowd, with many wanting to know how Democrats were pushing back.

And hours later, a Democratic senator traveled to El Salvador to bring attention to a case at the center of the party’s arguments that Trump’s immigration policies have gone beyond existing law and court orders.

Those events of the last 24 hours point to a similar phenomenon: In ways big and small, the second-term resistance to Trump is growing stronger and bolder.

The pushback is not just from politicians, but also from some of the powerful institutions that have come under attack by the administration. These include Harvard University, MIT and Princeton, all of which refused to yield to a list of Trump demands that would overhaul hiring, disciplinary and other practices in the face of billions of dollars in federal funding freezes.

While it is far from a full-fledged revolt, more of those being targeted by Trump’s policies are putting up a fight now, compared to the universities, law firms and even Democratic politicians who bent his way in the first weeks and months of his term. Yet amid the bursts of resistance is a steady flow of appeasement by some of the country’s most powerful institutions, such as major law firms that have struck deals with the White House — including five more last week — to collectively provide hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal work.

Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to harness anti-Trump energy as the party regroups from 2024 and refocuses on next year’s midterm elections. But that could get complicated, as some of that angst is aimed at Democratic leaders.

The shift comes as Democratic leaders have gotten a “massive earful” from their base over the last couple of months from those upset with a lack of resistance to the administration’s actions, said Leah Greenberg, a co-founder of Indivisible, an organizing force on the left.

“What we’re starting to see from some corners of higher education, of business, et cetera, is people recognizing that there’s not a path, short of complete and utter subjugation, that will satisfy this administration,” Greenberg said. “So you might as well find some ground you’re comfortable on and fight.”

Rep. Nikki Budzinski, a Democrat in a district covering parts of central and southern Illinois, said her constituents, including the roughly 400 people who poured into a Wednesday-evening town hall, are also fearful of fluctuating tariffs and what’s ahead with Medicaid, Social Security and disability rights.

In January, Budzinski said, “I heard from a lot of Democrats, ‘The news is just too hard to pay attention to, and I can’t turn it on.’ I think what I hear now is that people are paying attention, and they’re trying to figure out what best ways they can be involved.”

“The uncertainty is really kind of the killer. Your tariff’s on one day, tariff’s off another. A Social Security office closed. Does that mean that there’s not going to be one in the county?” Budzinski added.

Earlier this month, Americans flooded the streets of cities across the country as part of hundreds of “Hands Off” protests against the administration. Even former President Joe Biden, who has remained quiet in the face of repeated needling by Trump, held his first post-presidential public appearance Monday, warning of the administration’s approach to Social Security.

Greenberg described a post-election disconnect between the Democratic Party’s rank and file and its “elites,” who she said spent months second-guessing or sulking while law firms and universities yielded to Trump’s early demands.

From her standpoint, the burst of energy was immediate after Trump’s election — and it’s steadily rising.

“The upsurge in regular people organizing came in the vacuum of a lack of elite leadership from both the political class and from the kinds of institutions that you think of as upholding norms around liberal democracy,” she said. “Over the last couple of months, the breadth and the scope and the ferocity of the assault [from the Trump administration] has demonstrated to at least some of the folks in the elite circles that they actually have to push back.”

Democrats look to capitalize

Democrats see the rising energy to push back on Trump as a positive sign for the party heading into next year’s midterm elections, where they would need to net three seats to flip the House and four seats to flip the Senate.

Small-dollar donations are ticking up, said Chris Korge, the Democratic National Committee’s fundraising chair. The most recently monthly campaign finance filings show the party pulling in more small dollars in January and February this year ($10.7 million) than during the same period in 2017 ($8 million) — just after Trump took office for his first term.

“Democrats are starting to get a head of steam,” Korge said. “Donors, large donors are becoming less depressed about the past election and more enthused about where we go from here and what our prospects are.”

Korge said Trump has not come through with the economic panacea he promised but instead has wrought “total chaos” on the markets, emboldening Democrats to feel they can win back the message on the economy after struggling on economic issues in the 2024 campaign.

The party, having already pushed back billionaire Elon Musk in a battle over a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat earlier this month, is eagerly looking forward to upcoming gubernatorial campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey this year, before the 2026 midterms. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Suzan DelBene of Washington pointed to recent special elections, in which Democrats have improved on the party’s performance in November, as evidence that Democrats have the momentum.

“We’ve seen in just a few months that the public has already turned on Republicans and their record of broken promises,” DelBene said.

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., who is co-chairing the DCCC’s recruitment effort, told reporters at an event last week with the think tank Third Way that the committee has seen a “flood of enthusiasm” from potential candidates, including military veterans, former federal workers and small-business owners.

Republicans say Democrats are overconfident. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP’s campaign arm focused on House races, recently said in a statement, “Voters aren’t buying it, and they know Democrats are too extreme, too unpopular, and totally out of touch.”

At the very least, Democrats figure to head into 2026 with a growing bench of candidates. The organization Run for Something, which launched after Trump’s first election in 2016 and recruits candidates for state and local office, announced Wednesday that nearly 40,000 people had expressed interest in running for office since the November election.

The group saw “major spikes” in interest after Trump’s inauguration, as the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency sought to slash the size of the federal government, and after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., voted to advance a GOP-led government funding measure. 

Angst also takes aim at Democrats

Schumer’s vote, which drew the ire of his fellow Democrats, underscored one potential complication of the burgeoning energy to take on Trump: Those feelings could also be directed at Democrats’ own leaders.

Democratic voters have been itching for their party to fight Trump. An NBC News poll conducted in March found nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters said they want Democrats in Congress to stick to their positions even if it leads to gridlock, and just one-third wanted their leaders to compromise with Trump — a complete reversal from Trump’s first term.

David Hogg, a DNC vice chair, warned that energy will inevitably lead to primary challenges against sitting Democratic lawmakers, and some younger Democrats have already launched campaigns against longtime incumbents. Hogg said he is looking to channel that angst by supporting challengers in deep-blue seats — instead of competitive districts that could decide the majority — as part of a new effort from his PAC, Leaders We Deserve.

“With the approval rating we have right now, this is coming. It is going to happen,” Hogg said, referring to the Democratic Party’s low favorability ratings in recent polling. “The question is: Is it going to be productive or is it going to be total chaos that is very destructive? And I’m trying to make sure that this is done productively. And that we’re showing our base, too, that there is an effort to change and things are not staying the same, even if that does piss off some people in D.C.”

Hogg said his group will target lawmakers who are “asleep at the wheel” and not sufficiently fighting Trump. He laid out examples of lawmakers who are successfully taking on Trump, in his view, noting New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting the Oligarchy” rallies; Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador this week to investigate what the Trump administration said in court was a mistaken deportation; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking Senate speech; and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy’s online videos.

But Hogg also plans to support Democratic nominees in competitive districts, and he pushed back on critics who say his effort would divert resources from those races, pointing to the millions of dollars that flowed to Ocasio-Cortez’s and Sanders’ campaigns as proof that the party’s base will support candidates who push back on Trump.

“The things that Democrats are struggling with are not fundraising,” Hogg said.

Asked if she was concerned about the efforts to challenge incumbents in primaries, DelBene said, “Democrats are united on taking back the majority in the House of Representatives, and that’s the top focus of the DCCC. And what I would tell anyone who wants to be helpful, to donate, is to focus on the races where we can take back the majority.”