NEVADA, Mo. — A crowd of about 50 people are already seated with omelets and biscuits and gravy at a diner in Nevada, Mo., when GOP Rep. Mark Alford walks in. He smiles as he recognizes two constituents from a town hall earlier in the day who aren't his biggest fans.
"Hey, you guys are my roadies!" he said as he stopped by their table to shake their hands.
August is when Congress trades the swampy D.C. summer with time back home. It's typically when lawmakers host town halls, forums that have become increasingly less popular with Republican members.
But Alford is bucking that trend, hosting not one, but 15 town halls over four days.
"I love interacting with people," the former broadcast news journalist told NPR after day one of his tour wrapped Monday. "I actually like arguing with people, which I've kind of had to moderate a little bit — not be argumentative but try to get what someone's saying."
Still, he admitted some apprehension about how his town hall tour would go.
"I was a little bit anxious and nervous about what it would be like because I had seen the video of Mike Flood," he said, nodding to his Nebraska colleague's raucous town hall earlier this month.
And while there were some heated moments, they were a far cry from Flood's experience or the contentious crowd Alford himself faced in February.
He said he treats these events as listening sessions. On Monday, they ranged from a stop at an American Legion post to an ice cream parlor and then a more formal town hall at Southwest Baptist University.
"This is why we get elected every two years — that we're in the district, that we're taking the tough questions, and maybe we're changing the way we think to reflect the attitudes and the will of the constituents who sent us there," he said.
He talked to constituents about his work on the Small Business and Appropriations committees and answered questions about the tax and spending bill Congress passed this summer. Alford voted for the bill and said he tries to refer to it as H.R. 1 "because I want people to listen to what I'm saying, and once they hear 'one big, beautiful bill,' they stop listening."
"It would have prevented the largest tax increase in U.S. history," he told constituents, while acknowledging a tricky political reality. "It's kind of hard to sing the praises of something that would have happened but didn't happen because we did something."
When anger did bubble up over cuts to the Medicaid program and President Trump himself, Alford deescalated, thanking attendees by name for their "passion."
"If you're here, especially if you don't agree with me, thank you for coming," he said in Bolivar to a crowd of about 100, who were evenly split by a show of hands in whether they supported Trump or Kamala Harris. "I want to know deep down in my heart what I believe and why I believe it, and you challenging me tonight is going to help me refine those commitments, values and those beliefs."
Constituents navigating Trump's new administration
While national politics is never far away, these smaller events allow constituents to ask direct questions about specific issues they're facing.
Jeff Droz, who owns a solar energy company, told Alford his health and business is suffering because of the White House halting funding for previously approved projects. Droz bought $100,000 of solar equipment after getting funding approved for a USDA project, but said it's sitting in the shop after he was told the administration hit pause.
"I'm sorry that has happened to you — that's wrong," Alford said. "Our staff will work with you personally to try to get this money and to try to get some answers at a minimum for you because you deserve that."
Jeff Carneal, an Air Force veteran, told Alford how the hiring freeze at the VA hospital affected his care at the Kansas City VA.
"That left me, and hundreds of others that utilize the spinal cord and brain injury unit, without care. That's unacceptable," he said.
Carneal is an independent and has voted for Alford in the past.
"My concern is that Mr. Alford let Donald Trump and Elon Musk go in there with a sledgehammer and take out funding," he said in an interview, adding he fears further cuts.
"The VA is doing clinical trials on basically a jumper wire, so I might get ability back. I might be able to walk," he said. "Well, I'm scared that they're going to cut more funding and that won't get funded because of [Health and Human Services Secretary] Bobby Kennedy. I'm hoping Mr. Alford will go to Kennedy and say, 'leave things alone, let's put more money into clinical research.'"
He wants to see Alford stand up to Trump and what he calls executive overreach.
"[Alford] seems very nice. I like him," he said. "I'm still deciding [on next year's election]. If things change, yes, I will vote for him. If he stands up to Donald Trump."
The subject of standing up to Trump persisted throughout the town halls.
"You follow Trump like he's Jesus," someone shouted at the first stop.
While Alford at times praised Trump for his leadership, he pushed back at the idea he has sway over the president.
"I don't have his number in my phone," he said. "I don't have a close personal relationship" with Trump.
National Guard in D.C. top of mind
An area where Alford opened the door to disagreeing with the president is whether the National Guard should be deployed to other cities, in the wake of being sent to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Trump has threatened to deploy the force to other blue cities, including Baltimore and Chicago.
Alford said he supported the D.C. and Los Angeles deployments ("ICE agents were in fear of their lives and federal buildings were being targeted") but questions sending them to other cities.
"I'm a big believer in states' rights and local control and local authority," he said. "But I'm also a believer in making America safe again."
Max Reynolds, 72, attended an event in Bolivar and said he's worried blue cities in Missouri are next, and wants Alford to publicly say he's opposed.
"The military has no business being armed in the cities, period. Not even close," he said in an interview. "Didn't [Trump] have his buddies come to Washington, D.C.? If he's worried about crime in D.C., where was he when they were tearing the hell out of the Capitol?"
Potential redistricting hovers over everything
Alford's west-central district is considered a safe GOP seat.
Just how safe depends on whether the state's governor and legislature decide to pursue mid-decade redistricting, following Trump asking Texas Republicans to draw five more congressional seats for the GOP ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. That's prompted leaders in at least seven other states to signal a willingness to adjust their maps as well.
Should state lawmakers redraw Missouri's congressional districts, it's likely the GOP's power in the fourth district would be diluted. New maps would likely target Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Attempts to remake the district into a GOP-leaning seat could come at the expense of making Alford's district more competitive.
For his part, Alford said he's staying out of the redistricting fight.
But his constituents on all sides are concerned. Republicans don't want to see their stronghold diminished and Democrats don't want to risk losing the few Democratic seats they have.
"Since Missouri already has such a limited number of blue districts, the fact that they want to turn those few into additional red districts is just unfair," Darwina Stewart told NPR in Bolivar.
Her friend Carla Berg agreed.
"It's no different than when [Trump] called Georgia and said, find me 11,500 votes or whatever the number was. I mean, it's just as blatant — it's a power grab," she said, referencing Trump's 2021 call with Georgia's Republican secretary of state demanding he "find" enough votes to overturn the state's election result.
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