Sen. Chris Murphy's 'emergency' Message About Trump Is Connecting With Democratic Voters

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy isn't drawing stadium-size crowds like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are as he tours the country talking to voters. But in a packed concert hall in rural North Carolina, people are starting to view the Democrat as worthy of the national spotlight.

Murphy and Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., have been staging events in Republican congressional districts in recent weeks, trolling GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Richard Hudson, who represents the area they visited Thursday. Hudson, the chairman of the House GOP campaign arm, has discouraged Republicans from holding town halls , so Murphy and Frost decided to hold one on his home turf in North Carolina.

"We are doing the job that these Republican congressmen and senators won't do," Murphy told the hyped-up crowd of mostly older voters at the event, while acknowledging that Democrats need to do more to soothe their anxiety and counter President Donald Trump . "I want to make sure that everywhere, in every corner of this country, people are willing to stand up and fight."

As other Democrats grasp for a response to Trump's election, unsure of how to confront him, Murphy is channeling his own frustration and anger into a sustained blitz of television appearances, fundraising appeals, Senate floor speeches and events like the one in North Carolina. He also is talking directly to voters on social media, including through lengthy live videos on Instagram where he sits in his kitchen with a cocktail and tries to explain what he sees as "the central story" of Trump's presidency - "the billionaire takeover of our government made possible by the destruction of our democracy."

It's a methodical approach for Murphy, 51, a serious-minded legislator who has been most well known for his yearslong fight to stem gun violence in the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 first-grade students and six educators.