COLORADO SPRINGS • As Sen. Michael Bennet sought to encourage a small crowd of fellow Democrats not to give up the fight for abortion rights, Maryah Lauer stepped forward, bullhorn in hand, to exhort him to do more.

“Do you support ending the filibuster and expanding the court?” the 28-year-old called out from a quartet of fellow activists. “The Democrats are not doing enough.”

The confrontation was a sign of the frustration among many Democrats after the Supreme Court’s decision last month to strip women of the constitutional right to abortion. The question heading into this year’s midterm elections is whether the outrage will energize Democrats to vote or leave them disillusioned and staying home.

From rallies like the one in Colorado Springs to the corridors of the White House, Democrats are pressing an urgent message that voters can’t give up and tune out. President Joe Biden, who often embraces Washington’s institutional traditions, called last week for an exception to the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rules to put Roe v. Wade into federal law.

But the president and his aides have rejected more dramatic steps like adding additional justices to the Supreme Court or opening clinics on federal lands in states that ban the procedure. And that has left some in the party’s more activist circles worried.

“People want to feel like you’re looking at every option,” said Brian Fallon of Demand Justice, a Democratic group advocating court expansion, which Biden has rejected.

The party tried to vote abortion rights into federal law earlier this year, but the effort failed as Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia sided with Republicans opposing the bill. Manchin and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona say they oppose making an exception to the filibuster rule for abortion rights, and reiterated their stance hours after Biden’s statement, rendering it impossible.

Instead, the Democratic message is shaping up to be: Elect more Democrats to protect abortion rights. That, however, risks falling flat among Democrats who argue that passionate calls to vote hardly translate automatically into people doing as they’re asked.

“There has got to be some articulation of what they get for voting in the election,” said Tresa Undem, a liberal Democratic pollster. “People want to hear real strategy, they want to hear real results.”

The problem is there may not be a strategy that will lead to real results, other than winning elections. The party needs at least two more senators to end the filibuster and vote on abortion rights, and many worry that even if such a bill should pass, the high court would simply strike down a law establishing a national right to abortion. Even drastic moves like packing the court with liberal justices — unlikely to pass anyway — would be just temporary wins, because the GOP could just expand the court again once it wins power and add conservative justices.

Still, many Democrats say they expect their voters to be outraged into action by the recent ruling.

They argue that Biden has truly limited options and any despair about his inability to override the ruling will be overcome by Democratic anger against Republicans in November.

“All the data shows Democratic intensity has gone up significantly in the last few weeks,” said Simon Rosenberg of NDN, a Democratic thinktank. “People in the Democratic Party may be disappointed with their leaders, but they understand, more graphically than ever, the threat the new right represents.”

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a growing percentage of Americans calling out abortion or women’s rights as priorities for the government. In an open-ended question, 22% of U.S. adults named abortion or women’s rights as one of up to five problems they want the government to work on, more than double since December.

Democrats have been bracing for a difficult election for months, with numerous polls showing Biden’s approval dropping even among members of his own party. Traditionally, the president’s party in midterm elections is not nearly as motivated as the opposition one, leading to big losses for the incumbent’s supporters. The anger at the Supreme Court decision is a possible political lifeline to incumbents like Colorado’s Bennet, if it doesn’t curdle into apathy or despair.

Though Bennet represents a state that has voted solidly Democratic in several consecutive elections, he could still be vulnerable in November if a Republican wave materializes. The GOP has nominated a challenger who, notably for a Republican, supports a ban on later-term abortions but otherwise backs abortion rights.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in May 2021. Bennett represents a state that has voted Democratic recently, but he could be vulnerable in November if his party gets hammered.

the associated press file