It was another weekend in the first months of the Trump administration and so another weekend of packed political town halls in heavily Democratic Boulder County, Colorado. “Resistance” energy in the region seems as fresh as it was the day after the inauguration, but it’s difficult to gauge to what degree Boulder might be a bellwether for state and national Democratic Party strategy?

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a fairly well-known progressive on the national stage, did a lightning tour of towns in his 2nd Congressional District, several of them in Boulder County. His office estimated that nearly 2,000 people showed up — 900 at an event in Boulder; 550 in Loveland; 300 in Nederland; and about 100 in Lyons. There are only 1,400 residents of Nederland. There are only 2,000 residents of Lyons.

“In Nederland, there weren’t even many cars in the parking lot. People walked,” said a Polis staffer.

“At prior town halls I’ve held in Nederland, there were 30 people,” said Polis.

Polis continued, taking a jab at the president. “Constituents are worried about the Trump policy proposals — the budget — and they’re worried about the integrity of the president himself. That’s what we’re hearing over and over again, and that’s in very diverse parts of my district.”

It has been largely the same since January at a host of other town halls held by state lawmakers in what many conservatives have coined “The People’s Republic of Boulder.”

Lyons state Rep. Jonathan Singer said he has spoken to Republican colleagues in the House who are meeting with much less enthusiasm.

“One said they baked cookies and still not a lot of people showed up,” he said. “That’s how it used to be for me, 10 people. I guess Republicans living in Douglas County think everything’s going just fine. It’s different here.”

Some 500 people packed a Boulder town hall at the Rayback bar in the middle of town. Two weeks later more than a hundred pushed in among steel brew kettles and fermenters in the back of the Sanitas Brewing Company. The events were hot and crowded. They took place on weekend nights. Yet the crowd stayed for hours, peppering state lawmakers with questions.

The Boulder County events this year follow a pattern.

There is clear shock and anger at Trump policy proposals, and questions reflect the news of the day.

Concerns last month about the president’s executive order travel ban gave way this week to concerns about Trump administration ties to Russia and about the U.S. missile strikes in Syria.

But the crowds haven’t come out just to gripe. They ask for insider updates on specific issues and seem genuinely to be looking to find out what they can do to head off what they see as retrograde policy proposals — on the federal, state and local levels.

“It’s that JFK line, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you …’ People are not just showing up, they really want to know how they can get involved,” said Singer at a Sunday town hall in Lyons that he hosted with Polis, state Sen. Steve Fenberg, Boulder County Commissioner Deb Gardner and Lyons Mayor Connie Sullivan.

Polis echoed the thought in his opening remarks to the crowd.

“If there’s any silver lining to all of the worrisome things going on in Washington, it’s the surge of political re-engagement on the part of people like yourselves,” he said. “So many people like you are realizing we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines, that they have to get involved, because there’s just too much at stake.”

The crowds seem improbably politically aware. They recognize the lines that separate local, state and federal jurisdictions.

“Tell Crisanta Duran she didn’t make a good enough deal,” said a man at the Sanitas event.

He was directing his comment at Fenberg and Boulder Reps. Edie Hooton and KC Becker, the House majority leader. He was talking about the complicated deal struck between state Speaker of the House Duran, a Democrat from Denver, and state Senate President Kevin Grantham, a Republican from Cañon City. The deal aims to raise billions for transportation infrastructure upgrades by leveraging new statewide sales tax revenue to secure bond money.

Grantham has suffered withering criticism from his own caucus for attaching his name to a tax increase proposal — even one that would appear as a ballot question submitted for voter approval.

At the Sanitas event, attendees groaned at the idea of a sales tax — not because they opposed a tax increase, but because they recognize sales tax as regressive — or the kind that will burden poor and middle class residents most.

“Why not a gas tax?” someone shouted. Becker explained that gas taxes turn out to be just as regressive as sales taxes, or perhaps even more so, and that, besides, legislators commissioned polling that suggested a gas tax was even less popular than a sales tax and would very likely be rejected by voters. Members of the crowd frowned but shook their heads.

In Lyons, a man pushed Boulder County Commissioner Deb Gardner to explain bureaucratic snafus tied to 2013 flood recovery efforts that left him without a home to live in and his son without a high school degree.

A woman in Lyons asked state lawmakers Fenberg and Singer about a bill proposed this year in Denver to alter the makeup of the board of PERA, the organization that manages the retirement accounts of state public employees.

The town hall went on for three hours.

The lawmakers at these events take turns telling the crowds exactly what they can do to make a difference.

“Contact Senate President Grantham, tell him to let this bill get to the Senate floor for a vote,” said Fenberg in the Sanitas brew room, talking about House Bill 1156, which would have prohibited licensed therapists from practicing so-called gay conversion therapy — or therapy that attempts to make gay people straight. Grantham didn’t let the bill reach the floor. It died as expected in the Senate’s kill committee.

“We need members of Congress to hear your stories,” Singer told the crowd. “In Jefferson County, there’s one school counselor for 98,000 students. We have to share our stories and statistics on Capitol Hill.”

So, what might Boulder’s Democratic energy indicate for the rest of Colorado?

What will the Democratic energy in Boulder County come to?

“I think it’s important that if people are upset now and worried now, they need to sustain this level of engagement through the next election, because there’s only so much we can do given the composition of the Congress and the White House,” Polis told The Colorado Statesman. “Will people remain engaged enough to make electoral changes?”

It would surely make a difference in Colorado. Elections for all of the state’s executive offices come up in 2018 — that means the offices of the governor, attorney general, secretary of state and the treasurer. Same goes for Colorado’s seven U.S. House seats. At the Legislature in Denver, Republicans control the majority in the Senate by only one vote and many Republican seats are open in 2018 — even if the lion’s share of those seats are tied to solid red districts.

Indeed, Democratic politicians are surely watching special elections unfolding now around the country.

Lefty politics site Daily Kos has raised $1.3 million for Democratic congressional candidates running in those elections — and the candidates are doing well, seizing on anti-Trump fervor, gaining national attention and forcing Republicans to expend resources in traditionally deep-red districts.

Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Georgia Democrat, is firing up voters in a suburban Atlanta district. His campaign slogan is simply, “Make Trump Furious.” Ossoff is running to fill the seat vacated by Tom Price, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Ossoff’s campaign said it raised a remarkable $8.3 million in his first quarter campaign finance report in advance of the April 18 special election compared to his leading Republican opponents raising under half a million in the same reporting period. But that’s all part of the Democrat’s national movement. Only about 5 percent of Ossoff’s donations came from within Georgia, the rest came in from out-of-state.

Rob Quist, the banjo-playing Democratic congressional candidate running in Montana to replace new interior secretary Ryan Zinke, has Republicans concerned enough that they’ve asked the state to spend $750,000 to hold an in-person election. The move came after the state GOP chairman warned that a Republican-proposed mail-ballot election would favor Democrats.

At Sunday press time, Democrat James Thompson was making news in his run for the Kansas congressional seat vacated by Mike Pompeo, Trump’s CIA director. As media outlets have been quick to point out, Thompson would represent the conservative Wichita-based billionaire Koch brothers’ Koch Industries headquarters, but he nevertheless is drawing a lot of attention and a fair amount of cash. Republican Pompeo won his seat there by 30 points. Hillary Clinton drew less than 15 percent of the presidential vote in the district. Most observers say that, if on Tuesday Thompson lands within even 15 points of the winner, the race would have sent a tremor across the political landscape.

— john@coloradostatesman.com