Protesters in Bonita Springs, Fla., demonstrate outside Rep. Byron Donalds’ rally announcing his gubernatorial campaign on March 28. (Photo: Author)
April 16, 2025 by David Silverberg
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) has scheduled a town hall meeting on Monday, April 21 at 6:30 pm at Estero High School, 21900 River Ranch Rd., Estero, Fla.
This town hall is especially significant—and could be historic—because it is the first one scheduled since he declared his candidacy for governor of Florida on Feb. 25.
Every indication to date is that this will be a highly restricted meeting, intended more as a campaign rally for his gubernatorial race than as an open forum where constituents can freely air their concerns.
The meeting is restricted to voting constituents of the 19th Congressional District (CD19), the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.
The Donalds website for tickets states that only 700 spaces are available and these have already been taken. Ticketholder access will be confirmed by an emailed response from Donalds’ office, which must be shown, either printed or digital, upon entrance. The emails will not be sent out until 5:00 pm on April 18, according to the website. Guests must arrive between 4:30 and 5:30 pm.
Ticketholders may bring up to four family members but anyone entering over 18 years of age must have identification proving their residence in CD19.
According to the website, “Disruptive behavior will not be tolerated; the office reserves the right to remove protestors or those engaging in out-of-order activity.”
Town halls, past, present and local
“Freedom of Speech,” painting by Norman Rockwell, 1943.
The town hall meeting is a time-honored American democratic tradition, originating in the New England colonies, a place where all citizens were free to speak and in some cases vote on common concerns.
They became especially important in 1795 when Americans debated ratification of the Jay Treaty with Britain, ending the War of Independence.
Ever since then they’ve been a fixture of the American political process, a place for dialogue and discussion with elected representatives.
Since the 2024 election of Donald Trump, town hall meetings with Republican congressional representatives across the country have become especially contentious as constituents have protested and aired deep worries about the course and decisions of the Trump regime. As a result, many Republican representatives are avoiding town halls altogether.
Since the first election of Donald Trump as president and Francis Rooney as the CD19 representative in 2016, town hall meetings in Southwest Florida have taken on an air of urgency and contentiousness.
Then-Rep. Francis Rooney speaks at a town hall meeting at in Bonita Springs, Fla., in May 2017. (Photo: Author)
During his four years in office Rooney held town hall meetings that were extremely well attended to the point of overflowing the capacities of their venues. With Trump using unprecedented rhetoric and making radical moves, constituents expressed alarm and anger at the administration’s policies, which Rooney defended in a rote and workmanlike manner.
Rooney defended town hall meetings, telling the Fort Myers News-Press, they “are critically important because this is democracy at work. This is what our country is built on.”
The last two Rooney town halls were held on the same day, Feb. 22, 2018, in Marco Island and Cape Coral. These occurred eight days after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. In stormy gatherings, Rooney defended gun rights and advocated structural improvements to school buildings in response. It didn’t satisfy attendees, who were frantic, emotional and outraged, with participants at times screaming and chanting at him.
Rooney never held another town hall meeting during the rest of his term in office.
Since taking office in 2021, Donalds has held ten town hall meetings including a “roundtable” in Fort Myers and virtual events online, according to his office. Two of these events focused on veterans. He also participated in debates with his Democratic opponent, Cindy Banyai, in his 2020 and 2022 runs for Congress but did no debates in 2024 against Kari Lerner, the 2024 Democratic candidate.
Following Trump’s urging and endorsement, on Feb. 25 Donalds announced his candidacy for governor of Florida in 2026 to replace the retiring Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Analysis: The stakes and the probabilities
The Estero High School entrance. (Photo: Estero High School)
In announcing the Estero town hall meeting Donalds is going against the Republican trend of avoiding facing constituents, as recommended by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-9-NC), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
It’s an especially risky move, given his campaign for governor.
However, it appears clear that his staff and campaign advisors are doing whatever they can to minimize any risk of embarrassment or failure. There are several choke points in the attendance process that accomplishes this.
Requiring proof of residency to ensure only constituent attendance makes sense given limited seating in the venue.
However, the fact that ticket applications must be vetted before sending a confirming e-mail likely means that staff is sifting through RSVPs to admit only Republican loyalists. The goal is to ensure that the town hall meeting appears as a campaign rally rather than an open discussion. This would explain the long delay in replying to RSVPs on the website, since people began responding immediately when tickets were first offered on April 8.
Indeed, one person who RSVP’d received a form asking the political affiliations of the family members she intended to bring with her.
A closed, vetted, restricted, supportive meeting can be streamed and used as propaganda in future campaign media.
Another choke point occurs when the meeting gets under way. A frequent technique is to require participants to write questions on cards, which can then be filtered by staff to weed out anything critical or challenging.
While the town hall meeting website does not state whether this technique will be used or not, it is highly likely in order to ensure a controlled, favorable meeting featuring softball questions and statements flattering the candidate.
So, in all, the indications are that this will not be a genuine town hall meeting of discussion and challenge but a carefully controlled campaign rally.
That said, constituents and others who are kept out of the meeting can assemble on public property outside the high school.
Donalds has said previously that any protests at his events constitute “astroturfing.” That’s political slang for the opposite of “grassroots”—i.e., paid, fake actors demonstrating rather than genuine local citizens.
Donalds charged that the protesters who showed up at his kickoff rally in Bonita Springs on March 28 were astroturfers, which they were provably not, and he has pre-emptively charged that protesters at his town hall meeting are the same.
“I would tell any Democrat that wants to come out there and astroturf my town hall, bring it, because we’re going to talk the truth, we’re going to talk about what’s really going on. I’m not afraid of you,” he said on March 5 on the Fox Network show, “The Ingraham Angle.”
However, given Trump’s propensity to project one’s own sins onto opponents, Donalds’ imitation of Trump’s manners and methods, and Donalds’ own lack of a following outside his district (and even within it), an observer has to wonder if any astroturfing going on is in his own camp, to turn out numbers for his events.
Whether astroturfed, vetted, filtered or not, the April 21 town hall represents a potential milestone in the politics of Southwest Florida—and given Donalds’ run for the governorship, in all of Florida and possibly the nation. It may just be a night to remember.
To see all previous reporting on Byron Donalds by The Paradise Progressive, click here.
Liberty lives in light
© 2025 by David Silverberg