New data shows No Kings was one of the largest days of protest in US history

This article New data shows No Kings was one of the largest days of protest in US history was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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No Kings Day on June 14 was one of the largest single days of protest in United States history, and it was probably the second-largest single day demonstration since Donald Trump first took office in January 2017. The number of participants and expansive geographic spread that day are both signs of the persistent popular opposition to the second Trump administration.

The Crowd Counting Consortium has been collecting data on protest events and participation since the first Women’s March on Jan. 21, 2017. Last week, we published our most recent monthly update, with estimated figures for the month of June, including the nationwide No Kings protests on June 14. With 82 percent of anti-Trump events for which we tallied participation on June 14, our estimates suggest that between 2 and 4.8 million people participated in over 2,150 actions nationwide. (We could not confirm estimated protest figures at 18 percent of events; almost all of these missing figures were in small towns.) However, we estimate the turnout at No Kings to be substantially larger than the turnout at the Hands Off protests on April 5, which mobilized a significant number as well — between 919,000 and 1.5 million people. 

No Kings in context

The Women’s March in 2017 — which involved between 3.2 and 5.3 million people — was, at the time, probably the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history. No Kings in June 2025 had comparable aggregate turnout, albeit across far more locations. Whereas the 2017 Women’s March involved actions in over 650 locations, No Kings saw events in over three times as many locations, with events organized in big cities, small towns and places in between.

In that regard, No Kings was geographically more similar to some of the dispersed protests that began to dominate the U.S. protest landscape in 2018. For instance, on March 14, 2018, between 1.1 and 1.7 million students walked out of their classrooms on the one-month anniversary of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. In an unprecedented demonstration, students in about 4,470 locations — from kindergartners to university students and even some homeschooled students — participated in what was then the largest number of recorded locations in a single day of coordinated protest in U.S. history. Ten days later, on March 24, 2018, the March for Our Lives drew an estimated 1.3 to 2.2 million participants in over 700 locations to demand safety from gun violence in schools. (The 2018 Women’s March, about two months earlier, had drawn an estimated 1.8 to 2.6 million people in 407 locations.) Protests throughout the month of June 2018 turned out several million protesters, largely accounted for by Pride marches and protests on behalf of LGBTQ+ rights — and over a thousand protests against the family separation policy implemented during the first Trump administration.

Sustained protest at geographically dispersed events in the U.S. reached its peak in the summer of 2020, during which millions of people mobilized at some 12,000 protest events in over 3,110 locations over eight months. This makes the wave of protests following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery the largest and broadest mass mobilization in U.S. history; notably, it built on years of intense organizing against police violence toward Black people and communities, including through the work of Black Lives Matter and other Black-led organizations, following the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer in Florida in July 2013, and the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014. 

Notable movement growth in 2025

While media attention is often focused on actors acquiescing to Trump’s demands, in the streets the popular protest movement continues to push back against the administration with notable persistence over time. Consistent with our past reporting, 2025 so far has seen far more protests than were recorded at this time in 2017 — a trend that continues through at least the end of July.

Overall, June 2025 saw protests in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Geographic dispersion of protest is noteworthy in part because prior research has found associations between the location of protest, protest participation and election outcomes. Generally speaking, higher turnout at protests in 2009 and 2017 was associated with more votes cast for the opposition party during the midterm elections in 2010 (for Republicans) and 2018 (for Democrats), respectively. 

Reporting on No Kings day highlighted the protesters’ desire to build upon street protest and to expand the coalition. An organizer in Beaumont, Texas, told local news, “We hope to encourage other people by being present in our community, to come join us, connect with us and get involved.” As the Nebraska Examiner reported, “Democrats, nonpartisans, and some Republicans who oppose Trump have used the protests as a political rallying cry or organizational tool.”

Furthering the emphasis on protests as tools, the event in Durango, Colorado, included “action tables” where protesters could do everything from write postcards to Congress to submit letters to the editor. Part of the aim of protests is also about the emotional resonance of being joyful in a like-minded group. “Nothing makes the oppressors more furious than seeing the oppressed having a good time,” said a trombonist who played amidst the protests.

Participants included the young, the old and the clever, with one sign in Anchorage, Alaska, reading “The Only Kings we want are salmon.” In Milford, New Hampshire, Marcie Blauner, age 97, attended her very first protest ever, holding a sign mentioning her age and “Pearl Harbor and D-Day were current events to me. Protect Democracy Again!” In Rochester, New York, protesters from the retirement community St. John’s Meadows also joined the nationwide protests. In expressing deep concern about the U.S. today, one resident highlighted what he saw as a potential historical parallel: the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.

In addition to the number of protests taking place, there are, of course, other indicators of the growing commitment of protesters to participate in a durable pro-democracy movement. One indicator is the willingness to participate in peaceful protests despite the threat of political violence. Tens of thousands turned out in Saint Paul despite the killing and attempted killing of several Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses the morning of the No Kings protests on June 14, followed by a warning of potential targeting of protesters by the at-large gunman. One peaceful marcher was killed in Salt Lake City by an armed volunteer who fired shots at a nearby armed man, who was also wounded. Counter-protesters in several locations around the country brandished weapons at No Kings protesters. However, those incidents of violence were exceptions — over 99.5 percent of reported protests had no injuries or property damage, with the latter reported in only 10 locations (just under 0.5 percent). 

A second indicator of commitment is that the No Kings coalition has hosted several online trainings over the past month that have attracted hundreds of thousands of views. The July 16 virtual training was probably the largest nonviolence training in U.S. history, with over 130,000 registered. 

Popular mobilization through protest is neither the entirety of the opposition to the Trump administration nor sufficient in and of itself to compel change. But historically, the mass public — in tandem with other societal actors like opposition politicians, lawyers, labor unions and courts — is likely to continue to play a crucial role in the U.S. and elsewhere in standing for the rule of law and democratic norms.

This article New data shows No Kings was one of the largest days of protest in US history was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/08/new-data-shows-no-kings-was-one-of-the-largest-days-of-protest-in-us-history/