After last weekend’s massive No Kings protests, some small-community people have sent messages to this effect: Our community didn’t have a No Kings event last time, but should it for round three?
For many of those people and communities, the best strategic answer is yes.
Nationally, the October No Kings event outran the June edition, with an estimated 7 million or more attendees overall. Oregon attendance has been pegged at 100,000 minimum, but the actual total number may have approached twice that. October outpaced June by an increase of one-third to one-half.
Most of the attention went, as it usually does, to the big urban events. Portland’s turnout, which was of course the largest in the state and estimated at around 40,000 (local law enforcement) to 50,000 (a number of news reports), was indeed spectacular. The Eugene event attracted about 3,500 to 4,000, and about 1,000 at the statehouse in Salem. Other larger Oregon cities, like Hillsboro, Gresham, Bend and Medford, had substantial events as well.
Not to discount any of that, but a big crowd protesting Trump in Portland or Eugene, impressive as it was, doesn’t count as an earth-shattering surprise. What may be of greater interest is this: While Trump won 25 of Oregon’s 36 counties, No Kings events, sometimes drawing large numbers of people relative to the population, were held last weekend in most of them.
In Yamhill County, which voted for Trump in each of his presidential contests, the No Kings event I attended in McMinnville featured a long march and an enthusiastic crowd and pulled an estimated 1,000 people. Another event in smaller Newberg drew about half as many.
Trump won Douglas County with more than 67% of the vote in 2024, yet organizers estimated more than 2,500 people protested at Stewart Parkway in Roseburg.
About 2,000 were estimated at Grants Pass in Josephine County, where Trump won nearly 63% of the vote in 2024.
Still, these are counties with large populations mostly not too far from more liberal urban areas. What about locations further away?
Hundreds protested in Pendleton and Tillamook — Trump won Umatilla County with 67.2% in 2024 and Tillamook County with 49%.
In all, Oregon hosted more than 60 No Kings events. Protests were reported in such small or mid-sized communities as Lakeview, Heppner, Scappoose, Prineville, Silverton, Enterprise, Harrisburg, Baker City, Coos Bay, La Grande, Oakridge, Woodburn, Gold Beach, Bandon, Cloverdale, and even small and remote Burns (in Harney County, which went 77.7% for Trump in 2024). Every one of those was located in a county which supported, often strongly, Trump at the polls.
If planned events all materialized (as all or nearly all seem to have done), Sherman, Gilliam, Grant and Malheur may have been the only Oregon counties not to hold a protest last weekend.
Very high vote percentages often are driven by communities where a prevailing view is that everyone, or almost everyone, locally votes in that direction. If that impression is punctured by a significant number of people who show up at a protest, some significant amount of the air may be let out of the balloon. Those very high percentages may decline.
With that in mind, some people in smaller communities have quietly begun to message other people about holding such an event there next time. If that happens, the number of Oregon communities with such events could expand by a couple of dozen or more. They could also alter (not necessarily flip, but moderate) the character of a number of communities.
That, of course, depends on whether another No Kings national event happens. None seems to be planned at present, but a third edition does seem likely, since both of the first two were widely considered successes, and the second seemed to expand considerably in size over the first.
And if some of the people who attended protests in Bend or Grants Pass event came from nearby communities, they might decide next time to build a local activity of their own — establishing a protest community in a location that previously hadn’t seen (or perceived) one. In a small community, that more localized activism could affect the social atmosphere.
Hold a few more No Kings rallies, and the impact on Oregon could be real. A street protest can feel ephemeral, but the ripple effects could be large.
This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.