A grassroots movement aiming to help Democrats take back the House is going viral
You may have seen this link pop up in your Facebook feed over the weekend:
Tens of thousands have joined a new campaign, called Swing Left, that aims to help Democrats win the majority in the House of Representatives in 2018.
Since Inauguration Day, over 100,000 people have signed up, according to Swing Left's founders. The campaign focuses on the 2018 midterm election as the next viable chance for progressives to regain power in the US federal government.
The website maps 52 swing districts around the country - defined as areas where the current representative won by 15% of the vote or less - and helps Democrats find the swing district located closest to their homes so they can start working on behalf of progressives.
People who sign up for Swing Left receive weekly emails about how to fundraise and volunteer for Democratic candidates. For them to win the House majority, Democrats would need to take 80% of all those swing districts in the next election, which means flipping 24 of the ones that elected Republican representatives in 2016.
Swing Left is a grassroots effort - started by individuals from a variety of industries, including tech, media, nonprofits, and art - that aims to seize on mounting opposition to Trump's administration. The day after Inauguration Day, approximately 500,000 people convened for the Women's March in Washington DC, while millions more participated in sister marches across 60 countries. Swing Left's site has been shared approximately 216,850 times on Facebook, according to analytics from ShareCount. And over 68,000 people have also signed up to receive a Facebook reminder about Congress' 2018 election.
"We're starting early to unify progressives who promote tolerance, equality, unity and fairness. To out-organize Republicans, we can't wait," Swing Left's site reads.