Protestors march outside Houston City Hall at March 28th’s No Kings Rally. Many protestors brought handmade signs, some calling for the defunding of ICE, others attacking President Trump.
Powered by People focuses on building relationships with voters and encouraging them to turn out to vote. They do so through a network of volunteers, who are trained to register voters and maintain contact with new voters through election day to answer questions and give reminders about deadlines.
They had a presence at the third No Kings Rally on March 28, scoring a table on the main square outside city hall where demonstrators gathered.
Powered by People volunteer Carol Whitmore (center left) stands in the group’s booth at March 28th’s No Kings rally in downtown Houston. During the 4 hour event, they say they spoke to hundreds of marchers, some of which signed up to volunteer in the future.
Over the course of the four-hour event, a team of about a dozen volunteers spoke to hundreds of protestors, said volunteer Carol Whitmore. Although most were already registered voters, some were convinced to join the organization as volunteers themselves.
Whitmore said she feels like more people are inspired to take action now than ever before, largely in response to their anger at the Trump Administration.
The organization was founded in 2019 by Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas Congressman and Democratic Senate nominee. Powered by People’s focus on Texas is one that he hopes results in the statewide victory he missed by 3 points in 2018.
Whitmore herself was inspired by O’Rourke’s quote, “action is the antidote to despair”, and quickly found herself a home with Powered by People, “Before I knew it I was registering voters out at HCC Northside.”
Many of the registration events put on by the organization are on college campuses. Whitmore has personally hosted events across Houston’s campuses, “I started hosting events at different colleges. I’ve been at Rice before, University of Houston, and a lot of the HCCs around town.”
Powered by People cites restrictive voting laws that suppress turnout as a driving force behind Republican victories in statewide elections. Their goal is to combat this and their website says that over the past seven years they have registered hundreds of thousands of new voters..
In the last midterm elections, just 22% of young adults aged 18-24 voted in Texas. In that same year, people aged 65 or up voted at a 70.2% clip.
Getting a higher young voter turnout would be beneficial to Democrats as O’Rourke won a remarkable 71% of voters aged 18-29 in his 2018 Senate campaign loss, according to CNN exit polls.
Houston Newsroom 