Republicans dismiss 'liberal activists' behind angry town hall protests

Liberals are calling it "resistance recess," but Republicans are guardedly hoping that the rowdy town hall meetings they're facing back home represent a harmless burst of left-wing activism triggered by President Trump, instead of a real warning sign for the GOP in 2018.

"The resistance movement is real, growing, and becoming an electoral force," MoveOn.org's Katherine Werner claimed in an email to supporters Monday night, pointing ahead of Tuesday's special congressional election in Georgia.

"We saw this last week when a Democratic upstart came within a narrow margin of upsetting a Republican in a special election in a deep-red Kansas district," she wrote. "And we see it in the surprisingly strong showing of John [sic] Ossoff, who is making a run at Newt Gingrich's old House seat in Georgia in a special election tomorrow to replace Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services, the architect of the attempted repeal of the [Affordable Care Act]."

Yet Republicans are split on how much the protests are manufactured by Democrats versus a sea change that could threaten GOP majorities.

"I think these are liberal activists," said National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Matt Gorman, as opposed to some uprising across party lines to protect Obamacare.