Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA via AP Images
Bernie Sanders speaks to the crowd at a stop on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour at Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena, in Tempe, Arizona, March 20, 2025.
Since February 22, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) began his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour of America with an overflow crowd in Omaha, Nebraska, tens of thousands of people have flocked to join him. In Warren, Michigan, UAW President Shawn Fain helped pump up the working-class crowd of more than 10,000 wearing a T-shirt reading, “Eat the Rich.” With Sanders ally Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) opening their rally in Denver, a whopping 34,000 showed up on Friday, March 21. Perhaps even more impressive, 11,000 came to an event earlier in the day in Greeley, Colorado, the home turf of Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. Fifteen thousand came out in Tempe, Arizona.
All told, in just ten stops more than 107,000 people have RSVP’d to attend one of these events. Faiz Shakir, who ran Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, and who has come back to Sanders-land to help organize this barnstorm as his chief political adviser, told me that “65 percent of those names are new to our list.”
But many have wondered about the endgame of these rallies. Are Sanders or his fellow speakers asking anything of those who attend? Are they funneling supporters to actions that might make a difference in their communities, or in national politics?
Sanders isn’t just growing his already substantial list of grassroots supporters, Shakir said. His team, which is also led by senior adviser Jeremy Slevin, a former top aide to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), has begun hiring full-time organizers to sustain this work in places like Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and several Western states.
In Wisconsin, Shakir and Slevin told me, these organizers are helping with get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of state supreme court candidate Susan Crawford, who is in a high-stakes and high-money race that has drawn the attention of Elon Musk. The organizing for Crawford, who is running against former Republican state attorney general Brad Schimel, is adding a labor focus to the pitch for her election.
The Sanders team is also looking at engaging newly energized Sanders supporters in other state-level policy fights, like a bill in Colorado that would make it easier to form a union. But their main interest is in targeting potentially vulnerable House Republicans. Eight of the ten cities that Sanders has stormed through in recent weeks are home to “purple” districts held by Trump backers. So, one thing the campaign wants to drive people toward is local town halls (real ones, or the “empty chair” variety) that put more heat on those incumbents, in preparation for their re-election battles next year.
At this moment, people like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez can generate political lightning because they don’t have to change their core message at all.
Shakir added that they would be looking for ways to strengthen local efforts, like fighting an energy utility or a predatory landlord. “If you are trying to organize your workplace, or you’re trying to get somebody elected who’s a progressive—now we’ve got something,” he declared. So, while the Sanders campaign isn’t sharing the names it’s collecting with local groups, if those groups are planning events that align with their priorities—like bird-dogging those potentially vulnerable Republicans—they’ll alert their list to those local actions.
The fact that the Sanders campaign is using these giant rallies for ongoing political organizing may not be apparent to many attendees. Nicole Sandler, the progressive talk show host of The Nicole Sandler Show who attended his rally in Tempe, told me, “I didn’t hear or see anything about local organizing.” One friend of mine who attended the rally in Denver with her teenage son said that while Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders both exhorted the crowd to “find community” and “organize,” there was “nothing tangible” that they were given to plug into. And the rhetoric she heard about how the “one percent” are greedily hurting the rest of us didn’t make her feel any better. “I didn’t feel hyped or excited,” she said. “It was more a stark reminder about how many of us are screwed.”
Slevin agreed that it was possible some attendees weren’t aware of the behind-the-scenes organizing under way around the Fighting Oligarchy tour. “At the beginning,” he told me, “at some of the rallies, we said, you can sign up for more action alerts. I think we did that at the first rally, but since then … we have thousands of RSVPs captured from this so even if they’re not opting in at the rally, if they RSVP they are on our list.” He also said with each stop on the tour, they’ve reached out in advance to local leaders from labor and other activist groups, in some cases giving them speaking slots alongside Sanders.
If you’re an anti-Trump Democrat or progressive right now with a clearly defiant message, the grassroots base will reward you big-time. And not just if you go on the road, like Sanders; visible opposition in the media matters too.
As Kyle Tharp, an expert on digital politics who writes the Chaotic Era newsletter, told me, in recent weeks, “Chris Murphy, Jon Ossoff, Mark Kelly, Bernie Sanders, and AOC have spent significant sums on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube mostly for grassroots fundraising ads. Murphy is noteworthy as he has spent over $1.5 million on those platforms just in the past month, and he’s not up for re-election anytime soon.” Tharp adds, “That these politicians are spending so much money means one thing: They’re seeing a strong ROI in terms of donations and grassroots sign-ups, reflecting a whole lot of enthusiasm among the party’s base.”
At this moment, people like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez can generate political lightning because they don’t have to change their core message at all. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and the rest of the billionaires in Trump’s cabinet make their case against oligarchy plain as pie. And people are hungry for visible leadership and powerful statements as many Democratic leaders seem to be on their back feet.
But Shakir and Slevin insist that Sanders doesn’t just want to keep elevating his signature issues. “If those 107,000 people who RSVP’d don’t hear from us in the next three months,” Slevin said, “then we are falling down on our job.” At the same time, he cautioned, “We’re not going to be able to lead on all these fights. But what we are hoping is that these rallies can be a funnel to start and let a thousand flowers bloom.”
