Protesters rally outside of the Tesla facility in Portland, Feb. 10, 2025, opposed to actions by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. (Photo by Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OPB)
In a state known for protests, the recent demonstrations around Oregon feel different.
People at the University of Oregon last week marched against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. They gathered along the streets of Hermiston in Eastern Oregon on Presidents Day, saying the nation’s poor are at risk. They crossed a bridge in downtown Portland, surrounded a local Tesla dealership, and filled the sidewalks near the Oregon State Capitol in Salem.
President Trump’s actions during his first month in office have sparked an uproar throughout the Northwest. People are protesting the administration almost every week, and the political frustrations seem to be growing.
No single cause unites the protesters, not war, police brutality or climate change. Instead, people of all ages are rising up against a wide range of the Trump administration’s policies, and what they call an unconstitutional power grab by the president and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk.
Oregon’s congressional delegation faces mounting pressure to act. Thousands of people have recently packed their town halls – from La Grande to Hillsboro. At least twice, the gatherings grew so large that people were turned away, according to local news reports.
Some members of Oregon’s Democratic congressional delegation say they have never seen so large a response from their constituents.
“This is unprecedented,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Portland politician who has been in Congress since 1981, told OPB Monday. “What really is different is our fundamental values and laws, our checks and balances system, is under unprecedented threat.”
U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle agrees.
“This feels different,” said Hoyle, a two-term Democrat whose district stretches from Eugene to Roseburg. “This feels like a constitutional crisis.”
Lawmakers say their offices are being flooded with complaints from Oregonians alarmed by the mass firings of federal employees and funding cuts to public agencies. Those include workers who fight fires for the Forest Service, and they could include people who forecast the weather for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
The cuts come amid Trump and Musk’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government. Musk, a billionaire leader of companies like Tesla and SpaceX, is the appointed head of what the Trump administration calls the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to reduce government spending.
Hoyle was previously a member of the House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus, but said she left due to concerns about Musk and his influence on the federal government.
“Anybody rational wants government efficiency, and to cut waste, and I, for one, am willing to lean into that,” Hoyle said Friday. “That’s not what’s happening. They are cutting things that are absolutely essential.”
Republicans like U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, who represents rural eastern and southern Oregon, say they support the Trump administration’s goals to downsize federal spending, but they acknowledge that it’s a challenging process.
“I support trying to get spending under control,” Bentz said in an interview with OPB’s Think Out Loud on Wednesday. “And I’m happy to see the administration try and do something about it. It’s really, really, really hard. And so the approach they’re using may be pushing the envelope. The court will call out whether or not it’s constitutional.”
The frustration with both parties is clear. Like many Republicans across the country, Bentz has faced pushback from constituents at town halls. At Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, so many people yelled and booed him that he threatened to leave, as reported by the La Grande Observer.
On Wednesday, Bentz insisted that the Trump administration isn’t superseding Congress in its role as a check on the executive branch.
“I’ll guarantee you that we are not being ignored,” said Bentz. “I guarantee it. I would like to know more about what’s going to happen, that the executive answer is going to do, sooner than has been the case, but we are not being ignored.”
Oregon didn’t see the Republican wave that swept much of the country during the November election. The state continued its recent tradition of electing Democrats to the highest rungs of political power.
That includes Attorney General Dan Rayfield. Recently, he’s signed onto a flurry of lawsuits alongside other Democratic Attorneys General across the country, seeking to block the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict transgender rights, cut research spending and end birthright citizenship.
“It’s going to be a priority to protect Oregonians from any harmful policies if we have a way to focus and ensure and hold the President accountable to following the rule of law,” Rayfield, who was elected in November, said in a recent virtual town hall held with U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter.
On Saturday, hundreds of people crammed into a high school gymnasium along the Oregon coast. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici spoke to a crowd in the small town of Rockaway Beach, in Tillamook County.
“Senator Merkley and I are always looking for smarter and better ways to do things, but there’s nothing smarter and there’s nothing better about the way this administration is approaching government,” Bonamici said.
Tillamook County went for Trump in the past three elections, but residents who spoke to OPB at the town hall described a variety of concerns about how the Trump administration’s policies — from tariffs to funding cuts and mass firings — might impact the region and its main industries.
“I will say, there needs to be some upset done at the federal level and possibly even the state of Oregon, and maybe this is what it needs to do,” said Eric Smith, a registered Republican from Bay City. “But the approach is way incorrect. Bottom line. You just do not treat people this way.”
But Republicans aren’t the only ones feeling the heat. Many town hall attendees have accused the Democratic party of being caught flat-footed. Representative Bonamici held another town hall in Portland on Friday. People filled the auditorium at Benson High school. They grew increasingly frustrated and chanted: “What’s the plan? What’s the plan?”
Bonamici said the Democrats were working hard, but emphasized that Republicans hold the power in the House of Representatives and lawmakers don’t have standing to sue the administration. A person in the audience shouted a response.
“If they break the rules, you break the rules,” they said, sparking applause.
Democrats have yet to form a unified response to the onslaught of the Trump administration’s orders. Meanwhile, there are few signs that Trump and Musk will slow down, and the public pushback is growing.
OPB reporters Natalie Pate, Dirk VanderHart, Amelia Templeton and Joni Auden Land contributed to this story.
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This story was originally published by Oregon Public Broadcasting.