The proton form factors at large momentum transfer are dominated by two contributions which are associated with the hard and soft rescattering, respectively. Motivated by a very active experimental form factor program at intermediate values of momentum transfers, Q 2 $ 5-15 GeV 2 , where an understanding in terms of only a hard rescattering mechanism cannot yet be expected, we investigate in this work the soft rescattering contribution using soft collinear effective theory (SCET). Within such a description, the form factor is characterized, besides the hard scale Q 2 , by a hard-collinear scale QÃ, which arises due to the presence of soft spectators, with virtuality à 2 (à $ 0:5 GeV), such that Q 2 ) Qà ) à 2 . We show that in this case a two-step factorization can be successfully carried out using the SCET approach. In a first step (SCET I ), we perform the leading-order matching of the QCD electromagnetic current onto the relevant SCET I operators and perform a resummation of large logarithms using renormalization group equations. We then discuss the further matching onto a SCET II framework, and propose the factorization formula (accurate to leading logarithmic approximation) for the Dirac form factor, accounting for both hard and soft contributions. We also present a qualitative discussion of the phenomenological consequences of this new framework.