The Pink Tide has awakened.
Trump at One Year: Women's March returns, but the real focus now is the midterm elections
January 17, 2018
WASHINGTON — The Women's March will be back on the streets this weekend, but now the movement that arose in "resistance" to President Trump is about more than just marching.
It's about registering voters and electoral power in November. And for Linda Meigs of Huntsville, Ala., like many others inspired by last year's march in Washington, D.C., it’s about running.
Instead of simply attending one of the many Women’s March anniversary events across the nation this weekend, this time Meigs will be speaking at her hometown event – as a Democratic candidate for Alabama’s state house.
“A year ago, I would have described myself as a teacher, a wife and a mother,” said Meigs, 63, a middle school French teacher. “Now, because of the events of this past year, I add to that an activist and a leader. And it’s pretty darned exciting.”
The Women’s March drew millions of protesters at events nationwide on the first full day of Trump’s administration.
Since then, activists have swelled the ranks of grassroots organizations, forming a national network of volunteers that Democrats hope will help them retake control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November. Already, the anti-Trump resistance movement has helped Democrats pick up a Senate seat in Alabama’s special election and exceed expectations in other elections across the country.
This weekend, as hundreds of local Women’s March anniversary events are held across the country, national organizers in Las Vegas will launch the next phase of their movement, “Power to the Polls,” a national voter registration and mobilization tour targeting swing states. They hope to register 1 million new voters and help elect more women and progressives to office.
“It’s really a weekend for families and for women to come together and reflect on everything that we have accomplished in 2017 and then think about how we need to move beyond just resistance,” said Bob Bland, Women's March co-president. “We have enormous collective power when we come together in numbers too large to ignore.”
Tens of thousands of women now want to run for office. Just one organization, Emily’s List, which helps elect pro-choice Democratic women, has heard from 26,000 women since Election Day 2016 who are interested in running. That’s compared to the 920 women who reached out during the two-year 2016 election cycle.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-real-focus-now-midterm-elections/1041198001/
Democrats have won every special election since Trump was elected, and women have had a strong hand in every one of those victories .. just as they will in 2018.
