Back to Vegas — and on to Reno, too

In an earlier episode of “Talk It OUT: LGBTQ Voices In A Queer Election Year,” I spoke to Make the Road Action Nevada, a group building grassroots power among working class and immigrant communities across that state.

In our ninth episode, we return to Nevada to speak with André Wade, the director of Silver State Equality, Nevada’s LGBTQ civil rights organization.

Nevada is not only a critical presidential battleground state, but Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen’s reelection bid is crucial to the Democrats’ hopes of holding onto the Senate in November.

Andre talks about how his group, founded in 2019, created award-winning digital voter mobilization campaigns during the COVID shutdown in the 2020 election cycle. Making use of platforms from Facebook and Instagram to Grindr, Silver State Equality achieved hundreds of thousands of digital impressions, particularly among gay and bisexual men. 

The group is building on that work with campaigns this year focused on lesbian and transgender Nevadans as well. 

Silver State Equality is also expanding its direct, in-person contact with LGBTQ voters beyond the heavily populated Las Vegas metro area into Reno as well as throughout smaller communities across the state — some of those communities confronting anti-LGBTQ backlash in schools, libraries, and other settings.

Andre expressed optimism that young voters in Nevada will be engaged this November, but he acknowledged that the challenge facing organizers is to meet those voters where they are. 

The podcast is presented by Gay City News.

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(Music courtesy of IMG via uppbeat.io.)