TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey’s latest congressional town hall meeting served as a pressure release valve for constituents angry about President Donald Trump’s administration, but whether the politics-as-performance-art tactics signal a coming Democratic wave remains to be seen.
The proof, experts say, will come during the 2018 midterm election.
“There’s a long way to go before the 2018 election, but if this kind of public mood persists, I think Democrats will be successful in trying to tie some vulnerable Republicans to Trump,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
Republican Rep. Leonard Lance, who represents northern-central New Jersey’s 7th District, held a packed and rowdy town hall Wednesday where the constituents’ loudest message was to “push back” against Trump. He has another scheduled for Saturday. Lance was New Jersey’s only Republican representative to hold an in-person town hall over the recent congressional recess.
The meetings come as Trump’s approval rating falls below prior presidents in their first weeks in office and as Republicans, who control Congress, are putting together an agenda that could include repealing the Affordable Care Act and overhauling the nation’s tax structure. In New Jersey, five of the state’s 12 House members are Republican, and Lance’s district is nearly split between Democrats and Republicans.
After Wednesday’s town hall, which featured more critical questions than friendly ones, Lance didn’t answer directly when asked whether the meeting was more or less hostile than in 2009 when the tea party movement was born in part in reaction to Democratic President Barack Obama’s agenda. The phenomenon led to a wave of Republican victories in 2010.
“There certainly was a similar vigor with the tea party movement,” Lance said. “I held a meeting in this very auditorium in the summer of 2009. There were a lot of tea party constituents that attended that meeting and that was a very vigorous meeting. I thought there was vigor tonight.”
The midterm election is more than a year away but the rise of credible, well-funded Democratic challengers could signal to Republicans that they’ll face negative fallout because of Trump, experts say.
In the meantime, it’s worth watching whether feedback from Republican members of Congress who got an earful during the town hall meetings has any kind of moderating effect on House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Montclair State University political science professor Brigid Harrison.
Republicans across the country have been hearing from constituents as well as organized protesters at town hall meetings.
“This is unsettling for Republican members of Congress - to face this kind of maddening crowd,” she said. “I think it is increasingly putting pressure (on them) to perhaps soften their support of the Trump agenda.”
The meetings have been criticized most prominently by the White House itself as “manufactured” protests by liberal groups. Some of the pickets at Lance’s Wednesday town hall found their way to Raritan Valley Community College where the meeting was held because of the organization of a local group affiliated with Indivisible, the nonprofit calling for pushing back against the Trump agenda at town halls.
Barbara Colucci, 79, of Watchung, was one of those carrying a sign and wearing a pink, knit pussy-cat hat that was a top feature of the women’s march after Trump’s inauguration. She took issue with the notion the protest was “manufactured,” as White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
“We’re not paid protesters,” she said. “It’s not true. Everybody is here on their own accord.”
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