HRC staff, members and supporters are fanning out across the country to support voter registration efforts, phone banking, candidate events, grassroots advocacy trainings, and step up visibility and outreach at LGBTQ Pride parades, festivals and other events. The Summer of Action will also intensify HRC’s already-unprecedented grassroots effort to engage equality-minded voters in key states and congressional districts ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Last year, HRC launched a major new political and organizing initiative called HRC Rising, the largest grassroots expansion in the organization’s 38-year history.

“Donald Trump and Mike Pence have awakened a sleeping giant. Never before have Americans been more eager to participate, advocate and fight back against this administration’s hateful policies and rhetoric,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “HRC’s grassroots army of more than 3 million members and supporters are already organizing and mobilizing to support pro-equality candidates up and down the ballot who will help us pull the emergency brake on the Trump-Pence agenda in November.”

Over the coming weeks, Griffin will join HRC-led campaign events in key battleground states and congressional districts, with stops in Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He kicks off the tour today in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information on press opportunities with Griffin, contact ianthe.metzger@hrc.org.

This historic summer campaign comes as HRC is ramping up efforts to resist the Trump-Pence Administration’s onslaught of attacks against the LGBTQ community and to fight back against anti-LGBTQ state legislators attempting to undermine the fundamental civil rights of LGBTQ people across America.  So far this year, HRC and major state partners have battled more than 110 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in 29 states; to date, only two of those bills have been signed into law.

In the lead up to the midterm elections, HRC has identified more than 52 million “Equality Voters” -- voters who support LGBTQ-inclusive policies including marriage equality, equitable family law, and laws that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. HRC has prioritized investments and organizing in six key states in the 2018 cycle, and has already put staff and resources on the ground. Supporters in any state can text “VOTER” to 30644 to verify their voter registration, find their polling place and receive election reminders. For more information on how to get involved, sign up to volunteer and join an advocacy training, take action at HRC’s Equality Voter Action Center.

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

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