Women's March in Las Vegas targets 2018 mid-term elections

Thousands gathered on Sunday for the Women's March "Power to the Polls" rally in Las Vegas. Organizers said the event was intended to kick-start a nationwide drive to register a million new voters and get more female candidates running for office in time to oust President Donald Trump supporters in November's midterm elections to Congress.

"This is a birthday party for a movement that has only begun to flex its power to change this democracy," Anna Galland, the executive director of the progressive group moveon.org, told the crowd at the 40,000-capacity Sam Boyd football stadium.

The Women's March movement - which started in January 2017 in protest at the inauguration of Trump - has been galvanized by the #MeToo movement, widely credited with countering sexual abuse and misconduct. Many of the marchers supported women's rights, but also denounced Trump's views on issues including immigration, abortion and LGBT rights.

Focus on Las Vegas

Organizers said they had chosen Las Vegas partly because it is in the swing state of Nevada, with Senator Dean Heller considered among the most vulnerable Republicans going into the November midterm elections.

The choice was also to honor the victims of the mass shooting that killed 58 people last October, they said.

Christine Caria, one of the survivors and president of the local Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the link between firearms and domestic violence made gun control a key women's issue.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of New York, Washington and other cities on Saturday for Women's March protests that marked the first anniversary of Trump's presidency.

Organizers are planning future events in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.

Dream on

The biggest cheers of the day came when Senate Democrats said the government shutdown should not end until immigrants brought to the US as children – the dreamers – had won legal status. 

"We stand in solidarity with the dreamers and with the senators who are fighting back and saying, they are Americans, too," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.

Feel-better politics

"When our country was in free fall, the Women's March got us out of our despair and out of our homes and into the streets," said Richards said. "And ever since that day, women have been shaking the foundation of America."

Among the speakers was the singer and actress Cher.

"This is one of the worst times in our history and that's why I honestly believe that women are going to be the ones that fix it," Cher told the crowd. "Stay strong and remember if you don't have a vote, you don't have a voice."

But also organize

The rally also pushed for women to register as candidates and dozens of volunteers worked to register people to vote among the thousands in attendance.

Democratic Idaho state Representative Paulette Jordan, a member of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, told the crowd she was running to be not only Idaho's first female governor, but the first Native American woman to be governor in any state.

"This is Idaho's future. This is the future of America," she said.

jbh/jm (AP, Reuters)