The trend began in the late 1970s when the Christian Right registered several million new voters to vote for Ronald Reagan. Then in 1984, the Christian Right pulled out all the stops to re-elect Reagan. The single most important, though by no means the only, movement organization is the Christian Coalition. The Coalition claims more than a million members, which is probably a mailing list figure. More importantly, the Coalition, since its founding in 1989, has built 1,700 local chapters in all 50 states.
Some chapters hold regular meetings with a couple hundred people.
Many of the chapters are headed by women, as are some of the Coalition's state branches. Each chapter includes members of multiple charismatic and Baptist churches, meaning that the outreach capability of the Coalition goes well beyond its own numerical strength, which is phenomenal. In the 1994 Congressional election, the Coalition sent voter registration packets to 250,000 churches. On one piece of paper, the Coalition makes a chart showing pictures of the Democratic and Republican candidates for Senate, Governor, and Congressional seats. Finally, people on the left are talking about emulating the grassroots organizing tactics of the right.