 Heaney's early survey results show that about a third of demonstrators here came to advocate for specific causes, not to condemn Republican politicians. I mean, I think that everyone knows that you're not going to turn out at a protest and then the world is going to change. But what people are hoping to do is to pull things in their direction. Even so, he says, people are more pessimistic about politics than they used to be. And that can affect turnout.