Hundreds of thousands participated in political protests during April and May: study

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in political demonstrations in the U.S. during April and May, according to a new analysis by The Washington Post.

The newspaper reported on Wednesday that between 342,319 and 353,403 people took part in political gatherings in April and that between 97,738 and 102,188 showed up for similar events in May.

{mosads}In addition to those findings, the newspaper counted 3,773 protests, demonstrations, strikes, marches, sit-ins, rallies and walkouts in April, with 1,030 in May.

In addition to the Post’s report, The Crowd Counting Consortium, which describes itself as “a public interest project that is documenting crowds and contention” in the U.S., estimates that between 2 million and 4 million people took part in political protests in June. That number does not include those who showed up for the Families Belong Together marches in June to protest President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that led to family separations along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Between 433,903 and 501,427 people showed up for events associated with the Families Belong Together marches, according to The Crowd Counting Consortium.

The Crowd Counting Consortium, which collects publicly available data on reported crowds in the U.S. and collaborates with Count Love, also estimates that between 26,574 and 28,700 people attended political gatherings in July.  

The numbers from June and July have not been finalized. 

The Post reports that the months of April and May had a modest amount of participants in political rallies compared to other months this year. The newspaper acknowledges it’s likely that it did not record every event that took place, in part because walkouts on school and university campuses had no publicly reported crowd sizes, according to the Post.

There were no crowd sizes for 70 percent of the events it listed in April, and 43.4 percent of the events in May, the article said.

The Post says the decline in participation was likely temporary, and it predicts that June 2018 could end up being one of the most active months of demonstrations since Trump’s inauguration, given its current crowd estimates.

Among the rallies that garnered notable attention in April and May were the school walkouts protesting gun violence on the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting.

The Post estimated that 88 percent of the events hosted in April and 63.1 percent of events in May were opposed to Trump’s policies.