Can Rhode Island Voters Make a Difference in Swing States?

A national campaign is targeting Democrats to help fund voting efforts in key battleground states

Rick Brooks, a volunteer for the Movement Voter Project, speaks during a recent event at the Blue Room in Cranston.
Rick Brooks, a volunteer for the Movement Voter Project, speaks during a recent event at the Blue Room in Cranston.
Ian Donnis/The Public’s Radio
Share
Rick Brooks, a volunteer for the Movement Voter Project, speaks during a recent event at the Blue Room in Cranston.
Rick Brooks, a volunteer for the Movement Voter Project, speaks during a recent event at the Blue Room in Cranston.
Ian Donnis/The Public’s Radio
Can Rhode Island Voters Make a Difference in Swing States?
Copy

A recent get-together of more than 50 people at the Blue Room, a bar and music venue in the Pawtuxet Village section of Cranston, was part of a national campaign called the Movement Voter Project. The idea is to raise money from supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in predictably blue and red states — and funnel it to grassroots groups to mobilize voters in the swing states that will decide the November election.

“The approach in MVP is completely different,” said Rick Brooks, one of the dozen or so volunteers organizing the Movement Voter Project in Rhode Island.

Brooks said the project is a far more targeted approach than old standbys like mailing postcards to out-of-state voters or opening a campaign office in a strip plaza for a few months before an election.

“They’re investing in organizations that have been in existence, that have credibility, have a track record and are going to be there a day after the election, win or lose,” Brooks said.

The groups getting money through the Movement Voter Project focus on issues popular among Democrats like abortion rights, immigrants’ rights and voting rights.

This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.

The theater company’s artistic director will have been at the helm for 20 years
Attorney General Peter Neronha and a coalition of states forced the Trump administration to restore nearly $7 billion in frozen U.S. Department of Education funding, including $29 million for Rhode Island schools
Gov. Dan McKee revised a previous plan to eliminate bus routes and instead proposed service reductions on 46 of the system’s 58 routes
State officials joined with union leaders to condemn the abrupt decision by the Trump Administration to stop work on a project that’s roughly 80% completed