Saxapahaw, NC (AP)-Connecticut Chris Murphy does not draw crowds with the size of the stadium such as Vermont Bernie Sanders and New York’s reputation Alexandria Okasio-Cortez while touring the country, talking to voters. But in a crowded concert hall in the village of North Carolina, people begin to view a Democrat as worthy of the national spotlight.
Murphy and reporter Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., In recent weeks, events have been organizing events in the Republican Congress regions, triggering GOP legislators such as reporter Richard Hudson, who is the area they visited on Thursday. Hudson, the chairman of the Goop House campaign, discouraged Republicans to hold mayoralties, so Murphy and Frost decided to keep their home grass in North Carolina.
“We do the work that these Republican congressmen and senators will not do,” Murphy told the unbuttoned crowd of mostly older voters of the event, admitting that Democrats should do more to calm their anxiety and counteract President Donald Trump. “I want to make sure that everywhere, in every corner of this country, people are ready to stand up and fight.”
While other Democrats understand the Trump election, uncertain how to stand up to him, Murphy directs his own powerlessness and anger at a sustainable blitz of television appearances, raising funds, speeches of the Senate and events like the one in North Carolina. He also talks directly to social media voters, including through long -term live videos on Instagram, where he sits in his kitchen with a cocktail and tries to explain what he sees as the “central history” of Trump’s presidency – “the billet of our government’s billionaire has become possible by destroying our democracy.”
This is a methodical approach for 51-year-old Murphy, a seriously tuned legislator who is best known for his long-standing weapons fighting as a result of shooting in 2012 at Sandy Huk’s Primary School in Newtown, Connecticut, who killed 20 first grade students and six teachers.
While talking in the Instagram kitchen seems to come more naturally to Murphy than to throw away the crowd, his message is obviously resonated with the base of his party voters, many of whom are angry with Democrats in Washington for inaction. He raised about $ 8 million in the first quarter of the year, a significant amount that could compete with the amounts of Sanders and Oshai-Cortes, which together attract much larger crowds of tour.
“I want to say I’m not Bernie Sanders,” Murphy said in an interview after the Saksapahau event. “I will not paint 70,000 people. But that doesn’t mean I still have no obligation to try to go out and support national mobilization.”
The disappointment of the Democratic Party leaders has boiled last month, with most of the wraths aimed at the Senate of the Democratic Leader Chuck Sumer of New York, who voted for a republican bill to keep the government open just when the base hoped to see more battle than their chosen employees. Murphy was strongly against the bill, even if his opposition meant that Democrats would cause the government to exclude.
“I think that when people see us deal with adverse behavior, then it is much less likely to appear for rallies in order to eventually get involved in the type of civil disobedience that we may need to save democracy,” Murphy said.
His fundraising and his barrage from the media and events ask questions about his future ambitions. But it is not clear where Murphy’s moment can lead. He insists that he did not think of a presidential offer or future in the Senate leadership after Democrat No. 2, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, announced this week that he would retire next year.
“I think it is probably no coincidence that my content is breaking and more people listen to me at a time when I don’t get up every day, thinking of my personal political future,” said Murphy, who was re -elected in the Senate last year.
“There will be no elections in 2028 if we are not winning this battle right now. So it seems foolish to think about something different except for the emergency that exists today. I’m not trying to avoid the question. It’s not a cop. It’s legal that drives me.”
Ron Osborne, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Alamanse County, where the event is located on Thursday, said he did not consider Murphy before the main contender for the presidency in 2028. But “he does the right things,” Osborne said.
“He talks where others could do the same thing and they are not,” said Osborne, “it takes courage.”
Terry Greenlund, a 78-year-old Democrat, who was also in the audience, said he thinks Murphy “has a way to talk to people.”
“I think it’s time for a new generation to move with some new views and insight and energy,” said Greenlund, sounding many others in the room.
The 51 -year -old Murphy and the father of two teens seem to be enjoying attention. He jokes at the event that he may not be as “cool” as Frost, who is the youngest member of the Congress of 28. But Murphy has been still decades larger than many of his colleagues who have been controlling the party for years.
“I’m trying to be dad cool,” Murphy said.
Murphy was in Missouri on Friday after visiting a Republican neighborhood in Michigan with Frost last month. And they are not the only Democrats who embark on red countries. In addition to Sanders and Okasio-Cortes, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the nominee for Vice President in 2024 and respectively
Murphy said he did not want to “invent the wheel” with his fundraising, but he also did not want to sit on it. He said he plans to help organizations mobilize voters before the 2026 intermediate elections, and also put pressure on Republicans while trying to raise taxes and reduce congress reduction.
“The only way history tells us that you stop a selected leader from turning a country away from democracy is mass mobilization,” he said.
“Our party has made mistakes and if we don’t learn from these mistakes,” Murphy said, “We’re prepared.”