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The organization that planned the Women's March is trying to turn the protests into election results in 2018

Jan 20, 2018, 01:03 IST

Women's March attendees in Washington, DC.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

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  • The Women's March is moving its focus to registering voters in swing states ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
  • The effort will begin with a voter registration and mobilization event in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, the one-year anniversary of the Women's March that followed Donald Trump's election as president.


On the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration and the 2017 Women's March, the national organization behind the largest single-day demonstration in US history is moving its focus to registering voters in swing states ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

On Sunday, the Women's March organization is holding a voter registration and mobilization event in Las Vegas, Nevada, called #PowerToThePolls, while sister events, many of them protests, will be held in cities across the country.

Publicly declaring their goal to register one million people to vote this year, the Women's March chairs say they are refocusing their efforts on electing women and progressive candidates.

"This next stage of the movement will channel the energy and activism of the Women's March into tangible strategies and concrete wins in 2018," the organization wrote on its website.

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Nevada is a strategic spot for the effort. Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won the purple state by just two points against Trump in 2016, and the state's embattled Republican senator, Dean Heller, is widely considered the most vulnerable GOP incumbent up for reelection to the body in 2018. Heller is being challenged by a woman: Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen. The state will also replace its term-limited governor this year.

Civil rights advocates, including Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and NAACP board member Rev. William Barber III, will speak in Las Vegas on Sunday, alongside Nevada's Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, and other liberal lawmakers and celebrities.

The Nevada effort is the first of what will be a national tour of swing states, including Michigan and Florida.

The organization is also putting an emphasis on outreach to traditionally underrepresented groups, particularly people of color, who have been targeted by voter suppression efforts.

"We all must commit to fighting the systemic voter suppression laws that inhibit so many of our communities from voting," Linda Sarsour, a co-chair of the Women's March, said in a statement. "This campaign will mobilize a new group of activists to create accessible power to our voting polls."

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