Speaking to a supportive crowd of over 11,000 people packed into an arena in Greeley on Friday, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she wanted to deliver a message to the city’s Republican congressman, freshman Rep. Gabe Evans.

“Since Gabe hasn’t been around here, if we could just say hi to him for a moment,” Ocasio-Cortez said as she took a panoramic shot of the cheering crowd from the stage with her cell phone. “Can we just say hi? See you in November.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive star widely known as AOC, posted the clip to social media before departing for another rally alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Denver, where an estimated 34,000 people filled Civic Center Park.

“Today we’re in Greeley, Colorado where GOP Congressman Gabe Evans refuses to hold a town hall,” her post said. “So, we came instead to fill the gap. Rep. Evans, your constituents say hi! There’s a couple thousand more outside, too. They have some questions about your cuts to veterans care.”

It was the latest salvo in a barrage of pressure Evans and other Colorado Republicans have faced for not holding a single traditional, in-person town hall so far this year, even as their Democratic counterparts have been packing auditoriums, gymnasiums and community centers with a steady stream of the events.

Once considered a routine fixture on the political circuit, traditional town halls — who holds them and who attends them — have at times exploded into something between a political football and a cudgel in Colorado for more than a decade. Ahead of the first Obama midterms, Democrats were confronted by angry crowds during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, and the Republicans who held town halls encountered similar pushback from constituents at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s first term.

In the two months since Trump took office for the second time in January, the six Democratic members of Colorado’s congressional delegation between them have held 11 in-person town halls through Saturday, with Sen. Michael Bennet holding three last week in Greeley, Lakewood and Colorado Springs; and Rep. Joe Neguse, the House assistant minority leader, holding his fifth and sixth town halls since January in Breckenridge and Louisville.

Reps. Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen have each held one, both times filing high school auditoriums with more than 1,000 people in what they said was a record turnout for the events during their tenure in Congress.

Over the same period, the state’s four Republican House members haven’t held any.

Instead, most of the state’s Republicans have held or scheduled tele-town halls, which they say gives them a chance to avoid the “political theater” they accuse political rivals of fomenting, while at the same time allowing them to reach far more constituents than can fit inside a traditional town hall venue.

Although Evans has yet to schedule any kind of town hall, first-term Reps. Jeff Crank of Colorado Springs and Jeff Hurd of Grand Junction each conducted a tele-town hall earlier this month, and Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents Douglas County and the Eastern Plains, announced she plans to hold a tele-town hall on Wednesday.

Additionally, the GOP lawmakers’ offices insist they’re keeping in touch with constituents in other ways, through social media and newsletters and at smaller meetings and appearances, though those aren’t open to the general public.

An Evans spokeswoman told Colorado Politics that he plans to hold the events when they can be “productive.”

“We know paid liberal groups have been taking over town halls and we want communications with our constituents to be productive,” Delanie Bomar, Evans’ communications director, said in a statement. “We will do town halls and we will do them in a way that allows constituents’ concerns to be heard without being drowned out by yelling activists.”

The message echoes House Republican leaders, who encouraged GOP lawmakers to hold virtual events instead of in-person town halls, in response to a series of confrontational meetings with angry people voicing concern about the Trump administration slashing spending, laying off federal workers and shuttering entire agencies.

North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, suggested in a closed-door meeting that members would have more control over their interaction with constituents in online meetings and tele-town halls, numerous outlets reported.

“The best thing that our members can do is communicate directly, frequently, consistently with their constituents, and there are other avenues to do it than just going in to try to give the other side sound bites,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference. He blamed “professional protesters” for disrupting Republican members’ town halls.

‘A very clear window into real voter sentiment’

Craig Hughes, a veteran Democratic strategist who managed Bennet’s 2010 election campaign, told Colorado Politics that the Democrats running that year had plenty of experience with organized opposition filling venues at their town halls, but he added that his boss, at least, didn’t stop holding the events.

“No doubt some of the people that show up at town halls are organized by opposition groups, but they can also be a very clear window into real voter sentiment, and Republicans ignore this real outrage at their own peril,” Hughes said. “Extreme voter anger translates into campaign energy, passion and momentum.”

There’s little disagreement that tele-town halls serve a purpose — the state’s Democratic House and Senate members have held at least five remote town halls since January, including both tele-town halls and Facebook Live events. But Democrats and progressive groups say the virtual versions are insufficient and have been demanding that Republicans meet face-to-face with their constituents.

“The environment that we’re in right now requires that elected officials be more concerned about what their constituents think than what Donald Trump thinks,” said Crow in an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday. Crow’s town hall at the end of February at a high school in Aurora attracted more than 1,300 people.

Added Crow: “But the conclusion that I’ve come to over my time in Congress right now is that we should stop thinking that Republicans are going to just do the right thing and they’re going to risk their jobs for doing it. So, what that means is we need to shift back to making sure that their constituents are louder than Donald Trump is. That is our charge right now.”

At his Feb. 27 town hall, Crow urged those in attendance to keep the pressure on Republicans who haven’t held the events.

“Showing up matters, and even if they don’t make themselves available, if they make a decision to stop doing town halls, to stop showing up, then don’t let them go anywhere without you showing up,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Democratic National Committee put up a billboard in Evans’ Northern Colorado district, calling the Republican a “coward” for refusing to talk with his constituents and urging passers-by to call Evans to demand that he hold a town hall.

“If Republicans won’t show up, then Democrats will,” DNC Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement. “We are hosting events in Republican-held districts, and we are pasting Republican representatives’ phone numbers on billboards across their districts because working families deserve to be heard.”

The DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Association of State Democratic Committees announced this month that they plan to hold “People’s Town Halls” in vulnerable Republicans’ districts, including Evans’ 8th CD, the state’s most competitive seat.

A desperate stunt’ 

NRCC spokesman Zach Bannon dismissed the DNC’s billboard as a “desperate stunt” in a statement to Colorado Politics.

“This is the latest desperate stunt by radical Democrats to distract voters from their crumbling brand and out-of-touch agenda,” Bannon said in an email. “While Democrats resort to lies and fearmongering, Gabe Evans is hard at work delivering for Coloradans.”

During Hurd’s tele-town hall on March 11, the Republican told the roughly 7,500 callers on the line that he hopes to hold plenty of events, including by telephone, online video and in person.

During the call, a woman who said she was from Grand Junction pressed Hurd for details.

“As appreciative as we are of a teleconference and as efficient as that can be for you, is it possible to have schedules of times when you’re going to hold in-person town halls, to have a little bit more personal interaction in town halls?” she asked.

“I think it’s important for me to see folks face to face,” Hurd said. “What I would say is I want to make sure there’s a productive dialogue, and that we’re talking about the issues that I’m hearing from my constituents, and that we’re not devolving into political theater.”

Later in the call, Hurd said he is “less interested in” having an event like those around the country where, he said, “folks that are at these events aren’t necessarily interested in sharing their views, but are interested in putting on a performance.” He added, “So finding the right venue, the right place, the right time is something I’m definitely interested in, and I plan to do in my tenure here in Congress.”

A spokesman for Hurd told Colorado Politics this week that the office is “still evaluating” when to hold in-person town halls but stressed that Hurd intends to follow through.

In the meantime, various coalitions of progressive groups have been holding “empty chair” town halls, where the GOP House members’ constituents have gathered to air their grievances. Some groups have also been traveling the Republicans’ districts with cardboard cutouts of the lawmakers and inviting dialogue with the effigies.

About 200 people showed up on March 17 at a labor hall in Colorado Springs to confront a cutout of Crank, who was invited to the event but didn’t appear. Organized by the Colorado Springs Indivisible chapter, the El Paso County Democrats, the Progressive Veterans and the local labor council, the event drew numerous politicians, including Stephanie Vigil and Joe Reagan, Democrats who have previously run in the 5th Congressional District.

The Northern Colorado Indivisible group invited people to “have your voice heard” earlier this week at public parks in Loveland and Windsor, where they brought a cardboard cutout of Boebert. On Saturday, a group held a town hall billed as “Where is Gabe?” at a church across the street from Evans’ congressional office in Northglenn.

They’re taking a page from what turned out to be a successful tactic employed by Democrats and progressive groups who were opposed to former Sen. Cory Gardner, the last Republican to hold statewide federal office in Colorado.

Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper, who denied Gardner a second term in 2020, recalled the emergence of “Cardboard Cory,” which became a factor in Gardner’s reelection bid after he stopped holding town halls during 2017, the first year of the first Trump administration.

“I think we’ve already seen Republicans get major pushback from constituents in town halls and meetings in conservative districts in Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas — we got to keep that up. They are vulnerable,” said Hickenlooper in a virtual town hall on March 12.

“And if people come to enough town halls and hold town halls without them, cut out their picture and put it on cardboard. And Cory Gardner, when I ran against him in 2020, that had a little lifesize picture of Cory that they called Cardboard Cory. They took that to town hall meetings. They took that everywhere. And that was because he voted against the Affordable Care Act, and people in Colorado knew they’d lose their health care.”

Added Hickenlooper, who noted that the Senate was in session but he plans to hold an in-person town hall soon: “That’s the kind of thing we’ve got to do with town halls all around the state, and I think then they become more afraid of you, of us, than of Trump.”