By Arit John and Eva McKend

(CNN) — As Democrats have scrambled in recent months to energize a deflated Democratic Party and counter President Donald Trump’s power shift in Washington, Bernie Sanders has emerged as a leading voice of the resistance with a familiar refrain.

The independent senator from Vermont is no stranger to Democrats, having twice sought the party’s presidential nomination. But at a moment when the Democratic base is demanding leaders push back more forcefully on the actions of the Trump administration, the movement that fueled Sanders’ insurgent bids in 2016 and 2020 has taken on a new political life.

With the Democratic brand underwater, it has been Sanders – one of the most recognizable faces of the progressive movement – who has drawn thousands of supporters to rallies across the country with his longtime warnings against the “billionaire class.” Sanders was joined by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at recent events, where the pair protested Trump, his Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and what Sanders has described as rising authoritarianism under the current administration.

The Vermont senator’s “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, which will travel to California, Utah and Idaho later this month, comes as Washington Democrats have struggled to satisfy their supporters’ calls to push back on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans. Democrats’ social media campaign and protests during Trump’s joint address to Congress last month largely fell flat, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has drawn calls from some grassroots leaders (and a handful of House Democrats) to step down after he helped pave the way for a Republican-led funding bill that kept the government open.

That Sanders – a self-described democratic socialist who has never been a Democrat – has once again emerged as a leader of the anti-Trump opposition speaks to some of the branding challenges facing the Democratic Party, whose approval ratings as a party have been underwater. The Vermont senator told the New York Times last month that one of the goals of his tour was to encourage people to run for office – as independents.

His rallies have also coincided with the resurgence of the Democratic “resistance” that existed during Trump’s first term. Democrats won a high-profile state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and cut Republicans margins in half in special elections for two US House seats in Florida. Angry voters have appeared at town halls held by members of both parties demanding that lawmakers serve as a check on the president. More than 600,000 people RSVP’d to attend 1,400 “Hand’s Off!” rallies around the country last weekend to protest Trump, Musk and DOGE.

Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of the grassroots group Indivisible, which helped organize the protests, said Sanders’ rally strategy is a “brilliant tactic” that responds to both the Trump administration’s agenda in Washington and anger on the left toward a perceived vacuum of Democratic leadership at the national level.

“There is just a surge of energy right now at the grassroots level,” Levin said. “Folks are hungry for that leadership and want to rally around it.”

Sanders’ approach has both inspired some members of the Democratic Party and frustrated others.

Soon after his tour began, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other Democratic leaders said they would also hold town hall events to put pressure on House Republicans.

Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank, said that while Sanders’ rallies are popular with his base, they’re not resonating with the voters Democrats need to win back, particularly people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but backed Trump in 2024.

Those voters won’t respond to a message centered on “fighting the oligarchy and blaming billionaires,” he said, arguing that Sanders is reinforcing a perception that Democrats don’t understand or share the concerns of those voters.

“He’s a hammer and everything’s a nail, and so the cure for everything is going after wealthy people. That just isn’t what the working class is demanding,” Bennett said. “They’re not mad at Elon Musk because he’s wealthy. They’re mad at him because he’s destroying things they don’t want broken in government.”

Sanders is far from the only voice speaking up on the left. Within the Democratic Party, Illinois’ JB Pritzker has fashioned himself as one of Trump’s key critics, while fellow Democratic governors Gavin Newsom of California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky have launched podcasts to help rebrand the party. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey recently rose his own national profile by delivering a historic marathon floor speech.

Hitting the pavement

For decades, Sanders has warned that too much wealth has become concentrated among the richest Americans, and the country is at risk of being run by and for what he calls the billionaire class. His warnings of oligarchy have taken on a new urgency among his supporters as Musk works to slash the size and scope of the federal government.

“It is very much not an abstraction now,” said Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sanders, referring to the concept of oligarchy. “While maybe people can’t give you the academic definition of oligarchy, they know it’s bad, it’s rule of the rich, and it’s associated with Trump.”

Shakir attributed the popularity of Sanders’ rallies to his focus on looking at issues through the lens of class, not left versus right.

“That top versus bottom (perspective) explains everything about why Bernie, as a unique brand, is more associated with these fights,” he said. “The Democratic Party writ large is not.”

While the current intraparty Democratic fight is over how aggressively the party should fight Trump, Sanders’ tour touches on an older debate: whether progressive messaging resonates in battleground districts.

Several stops on Sanders’ tour have targeted Republican incumbents, including the Greeley, Colorado rally in Rep. Gabe Evans’ district and in Altoona, Wisconsin, meant to put pressure on Derrick Van Orden.

The tour’s first stop was in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, where both wings of the Democratic Party have spent years targeting five-term Rep. Don Bacon. After Bacon ousted centrist Democratic Rep. Brad Ashford in 2016, the party establishment backed Ashford for a 2018 rematch – until he lost the Democratic primary to nonprofit executive Kara Eastman, who campaigned on a single-payer health care system. Eastman lost the general election, and a 2020 rematch. Bacon also survived two challenges from Democrat Tony Vargas.

“We always welcome Bernie Sanders to Nebraska,” Bacon wrote on X ahead of the senator’s visit in February. “He reminds us how bad Democrat Socialism is and to be grateful for the great state we live in.”

Precious McKesson, the executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said Democrats in the state will have hosted five town halls by the end of April, including visits from Sanders, Walz and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna. “We’re just really trying to make sure that we’re listening to the voters and making sure that the people who are being impacted are being heard,” she said.

William Cox, an 80-year-old Vietnam War veteran who attended Sanders’ and Ocasio-Cortez’s stop in Tucson last month, said Americans need to start engaging in more demonstrations.

“If it keeps going this way, everybody needs to hit the pavement, and I’ll even put my wife in a wheelchair and we’ll hit the pavement,” Cox said. “Just get out and let people know that you think what’s going on is wrong and not American.”

Brianna Rasmussen, a 27-year-old Sanders supporter from St. George, Utah, traveled 120 miles with her fiancé to attend a Sanders rally in Las Vegas last month. She said she was concerned about women’s rights and abortion access, as well as threats to Medicare – her grandmother depended on the program to pay for her cancer treatment. Her mother, who she said was just diagnosed with breast cancer, is stressed about dipping into her 401k to pay for treatment due to the state of the stock market.

“When I hear people talking about health care for all, it would be nice if when you’re going through treatment, you’re not worrying about how you’re going to pay your bills, so you can just focus on getting through your chemo,” she said.

Rasmussen said Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez were among the few politicians from whom people are hearing.

“I’m upset and I feel like they are at least doing something,” she said. “They are drawing attention to everything.”

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