Instituto de Economía

Abstract: Three million people participated in the Women’s March against discrimination in 2017, the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. We show that the March affected the political participation of women and people from ethnic minorities in the following federal election, the 2018 House of Representatives Election. Using daily weather shocks as exogenous drivers of attendance at the March, we show that protesters increased turnout at the Election and the vote shares obtained by minorities. We conclude that protests can help to empower historically underrepresented groups.

Keywords: protests, election, gender, minority