Increasing protests for democracy in USA
G Elliott Morris, writing at Strength in Numbers, has partnered with the the Xylom to produce crowdsourced estimates of participant numbers at the No Kings protests.
According to their estimates, the No Kings protests are likely to be the largest single-day political protest ever, with a median estimate of 5 million people taking part.
Elliott has also charted the cumulative number of protests, showing Trump’s second term is facing far more popular opposition than the first.
Second “No Kings Day” protests the largest single-day political protest ever*, with 5-6.5 million participants
Here are the initial results from our crowdsourced crowd-counting estimates
G. ELLIOTT MORRIS in Strength in Numbers
OCT 19, 2025
FINAL UPDATE 3:00 PM ET Oct. 20: After adding new data, our median estimate is 5.0 million, and the upper bound is 6.5. The numbers in this article have been updated. Future estimates will be updated on the spreadsheet, but not here.
*Excluding the 1970s Earth Day events, which aren’t directly comparable as they involved much more planning and weren’t similarly political.
Strength In Numbers partnered with independent Atlanta-based science newsroom The Xylom on Oct. 18, 2025, to produce a crowdsourced estimate of turnout for the second “No Kings Day” protests held around the country. This follows our first attempt at crowdsourced crowd-counting for the first protests held in June.
Our median estimate is that 5.0 million people participated in a No Kings Day demonstration somewhere in the country on Saturday, with an upper bound of 6.5 million people. We provide an “estimate” and not a “count” because we are making predictions of turnout in protest sites where official records are still missing. The upper bound accounts for unreported events and a potential undercount of participants.
Our estimate is based on reports from local officials, local organizers, and attendees, and suggests the count from organizers — who report 7 million participants nationwide — may be a bit optimistic (but is not impossible). Still, regardless of whether the precise number is 5, 6, 7, or 8 million, Saturday’s events are very likely the biggest single-day protest event since 1970, surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.
The protests come as Donald Trump’s approval rating hit a new low last week, and as Democrats look likely to win upcoming races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia.
Our crowdsourced estimates are free to access here, and we hope they will be useful to researchers and journalists trying to enhance our collective understanding of political and protest activity in America. We think live, comprehensive, systematic tracking of First Amendment activity fills a large hole in traditional media coverage of political protests (which are dominated by guesses and anecdotal evidence). Where possible in our tracking, we preferred official reports over attendee estimates, and roughly validated those accounts with photographic and video evidence. We stress again that this is an “estimate” and not a “count.”
Protest activity is 4x the level in Trump’s first term
While no one can produce official data on the number of people attending yesterday’s protests (that would require some sort of controlled entry and check-in system), we do have nearly official counts of the number of protests being held.
This information comes from the No Kings Day organizers (who help plan and track each event across the country) and the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint project of Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut that compiles accounts of protests and other political demonstrations held around the country.
According to the CCC, on Oct. 1, 2025, there had been over 29,000 political protests held around the country since Donald Trump’s second inauguration this January. I added the 2,500 No Kings Day events we have tracked in our spreadsheet.
Over the same period in 2017, during Trump’s first term, there were barely over 8,000 protests.
The large jump in political activity is also notable if we look at the number of people attending events. As of Oct. 18, 2025, at 11:00 PM ET, Strength In Numbers estimates at least 12.8 million people, or 3.7% of the population, have demonstrated against the president since he took office:
Finally, we can use our data to compare activity in the October and June No Kings events. You can see there was a higher turnout in large cities, especially Washington, DC, New York, and Providence, which helped power the higher turnout in October vs June.
Thanks to everyone who helped us collect the initial data for our tracking and estimates. Like I said, they are free for anyone to use, and I hope they are helpful to people doing formal research on this subject.
Elliott
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