We are hitting a frenetic stretch in the presidential primary campaign with ‘Super Tuesday’ this week. This day officially begins the onslaught of state elections, continuing debates and campaign ads flooding the airwaves. It can be quite easy for nurses to feel overwhelmed with the daily presidential election coverage.
Senator Bernie Sanders has emerged as the Democratic frontrunner with victories in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Vice President Joe Biden hopes to gain momentum following his victory in South Carolina and a second-place result in Nevada. Mayor Mike Bloomberg is a wild card ahead of ‘Super Tuesday’ and has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on paid advertising since entering the race.
Senator Bernie Sanders spoke about nurses in last week’s debate in South Carolina. Sanders referenced nurses when speaking about his debt forgiveness proposals, an issue that continues to plague young nurses across the country.
We will know more about the race following Tuesday’s results, though we expect they won’t be fully reported for a few days. It is still somewhat early in the primary race, but after ‘Super Tuesday,’ it will no longer be early, and we can expect some candidates to suspend their campaigns.
To that end, nearly six months ago the American Nurses Association (ANA) launched nursesvote.org to cut through the noise and ensure nurses and nurse advocates had the information they needed to cast their vote and make their voices heard in 2020.
Nursesvote.org is a one-stop shop on everything nurse advocates need surrounding the presidential election. Our “How to Get Involved” toolkit is a comprehensive guide on everything from phone banking to information on volunteering at your local polling precinct. We encourage all visitors to download the toolkit regardless of which candidate they might support. As the Democratic field continues to shrink, we encourage you to check back with our candidate page so you can learn where every candidate stands on issues impacting nurses, their patients and the nursing profession. Our voting ‘Action Center’ will also enable you to check if your voter registration is up-to-date, find the location of your polling place and even how you can vote early in certain states.
Some of the latest developments on nursesvote.org include the development of a “#NursesVote Social Media Corner.” Here we celebrate and highlight nurse advocates engaging in elections by posting their pictures and sharing them on our RNAction Facebook and Twitter. The fastest way to get featured here is to post a picture of yourself engaging in #NurseAdvocacy while using the #NursesVote hashtag. If you wish to inquire about our popular ‘Registered Nurse, Registered Voter’ buttons, please feel free to email us at rnaction@ana.org.
Now is the time, more than ever, that nurses need to engage, have a seat at the table and make their voices heard, regardless of where they are from or who they support.
