The No Kings coalition held its fourth nationwide day of action on Saturday, Oct. 17, this time built around early voting rather than street protest. Organizers reported events in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., including marches to polling places, ballot drop-off walks, voter registration booths and poll-watcher training. The White House dismissed the effort, and some critics questioned whether the events were as nonpartisan as organizers say. No nationwide crowd estimate was available at the time of writing.
Background
No Kings is a coalition led mainly by Indivisible and the 50501 movement, with groups such as MoveOn and Public Citizen among its partners. Its earlier protests, in June 2025, October 2025 and March 2026, were rallies against President Donald Trump’s second-term policies. Organizers claimed more than 5 million participants in June 2025 and 8 to 9 million in March 2026, figures summarized in this overview of past No Kings protests. Only the October 2025 count was checked independently, at 5 to 6.5 million against the organizers’ claim of nearly 7 million.
Saturday’s events, branded “No Kings: Vote Early,” came 17 days before the Nov. 3 general election. More than 5 million ballots had already been cast nationally, according to University of Florida Election Lab figures cited by Stateline’s coverage of the day. The count of events varies by source. USA TODAY reported more than 3,000 planned actions, Newsweek nearly 3,000, Stateline more than 2,500, and the Associated Press described hundreds of rallies. This article could not reconcile these figures, which may reflect planned versus confirmed events.
Reported crowds ranged widely. The Associated Press counted what appeared to be a few hundred people at the Lincoln Memorial, while Stateline reported about 1,000 in Minneapolis and thousands gathered at a VoteFest rally in New York’s Washington Square Park. In Atlanta, City Council member Michael Julian Bond told a rally, “The Constitution gives you one power, right? That is the power to vote,” according to AP reporting via PBS.
What Different Sides Are Saying
Organizers: Coalition leaders said the goal was turnout large enough that results could not plausibly be challenged as fraudulent. Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin described the day as an effort against election sabotage, pointing to federal limits on mail voting and concerns about immigration officers near polling places. Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert told USA TODAY, “It’s so critical that people vote, that they vote early,” in its preview of the events. Fact-check: Several federal actions cited by organizers are documented. The week of the rallies, the administration sued California election officials to stop the counting of mail ballots from people it flagged as likely noncitizens, and the Justice Department warned local officials who tabulate such ballots of possible prosecution. Whether these steps amount to “sabotage” is an opinion, and the California case is in litigation.
The White House: Spokesperson Lauren Bis said the organizers’ focus on voting “proves they should change their name,” arguing that a group urging people to vote is evidence there is no king. She framed the midterms as a choice between Republican policies and Democrats she described as extreme. Fact-check: This is a political argument rather than a checkable claim. Trump has long questioned mail voting and has claimed without evidence that fraud cost him the 2020 election.
Critics of the nonpartisan label: National organizers say events must stay nonpartisan because many of the funding groups are nonprofits restricted by federal law, and their written guidance bans vote-blue messaging and candidate endorsements. Fox News Digital found participants in Alexandria, Virginia, and outside the White House openly urging votes for Democrats. One marcher told the outlet, “This is as partisan as you can get,” in Fox’s report from the marches. Fact-check: The same report noted that individual participants’ comments do not by themselves show any legal violation by organizers. It also cited an Oct. 15 livestream in which Levin praised Democratic candidates and criticized Republican ones. No Kings spokesperson Eunic Epstein-Ortiz said many people use the No Kings name as a rallying cry.
A side dispute with Meta: Organizers said their main Instagram account was suspended for about 90 minutes during the day, with backend access cut off for roughly four hours. A Meta spokesperson said automated systems flagged the account’s high posting volume and called the action a mistake, according to Newsweek’s account of the outage.
Note on Scope
This article covers the Oct. 17 events as reported on the day and the following morning. It does not include a nationwide attendance figure, because neither organizers nor independent counters had published one. It does not assess whether the events will measurably change early-voting turnout, which will only be clear once state data are compared with past cycles. This article could not locate a statement from congressional Republican leaders responding to the rallies, and could not locate international coverage of this round of events, so no View from Outside the US section is included.
Related Links
- No Kings rallies across U.S. urge voters to cast ballots early ahead of midterms (PBS News/AP)
- No Kings shifts strategy from streets to the ballot box with early voting day of action (Stateline)
- Nationwide No Kings protests push for historic early voting results (USA TODAY via Yahoo News)
- No Kings protesters spurn organizers’ rules (Fox News)
- No Kings says Meta cut off access to Instagram account on key protest day (Newsweek)
- Map shows locations of No Kings early voting events (Newsweek)
- No Kings protests (Wikipedia)
Discussion Questions
- Have you ever voted early? Why or why not?
- Can a protest movement shift to get-out-the-vote work and still be called a protest?
- Do you find the White House’s response or the organizers’ argument more persuasive?
- Can an event against a sitting president ever be truly nonpartisan?
- Should nonprofits that fund events like these face stricter rules on political messaging?
- Why do crowd and event counts vary so much between news outlets?
- How much responsibility do organizers have for what individual participants say?
- Was Meta’s explanation for the Instagram suspension convincing to you?
- Why has early and mail voting become so politically divisive in the US?
- Imagine you are a county election official. How would you prepare for a large early-voting push?
