The fourth round of No Kings protests draws a fraction of last year's crowds, city by city counts show

The crowds were the story on Saturday, because of how small they were.

The October 17 protests were the fourth national round of No Kings demonstrations since January 2025, held under the slogan “Too big to rig” and aimed at driving supporters to vote early in the November 3 midterms. City by city, the local counts came in far below the movement's earlier rounds. In Indianapolis, about 200 people gathered at the governor's residence, a venue organizers chose over the Statehouse grounds where previous No Kings events attracted thousands. Organizer Macy Lennartz said the group wanted to apply pressure at the governor's front door and called the turnout impressive under the circumstances.

In Richmond, Virginia, hundreds gathered at Monroe Park for the city's fourth No Kings protest. A march on Capitol Square at the same point last year drew over 10,000 people, the Virginia Mercury reported. In Hendersonville, North Carolina, an organizer estimated 1,200 people, against the 5,000 who attended a No Kings protest there in March, and wondered whether the chilly, windy weather had kept people home. In Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, the Palm Beach Post reported that the grassy lawn of The Gardens Mall, once packed with shoulder to shoulder protesters, was largely unoccupied, and that demonstrators were moving between smaller rallies in the county rather than massing at one. In Montgomery, Alabama, organizers counted 263 participants.

Organizers in several cities framed the smaller day as a shift in tactics rather than a loss of energy, pointing supporters toward early voting, canvassing and poll greeting instead of marching. In Asheville, one organizer told the Citizen Times that a ton of people were out volunteering and knocking doors rather than at the rally. The demonstrations were reported across the country as more subdued and less attended than the previous rounds.

What the numbers mean for November 3 is the open question. The movement's first rounds were built on scale, with a national turnout its organizers put in the millions. The fourth round, held two weeks before an election the movement exists to influence, produced crowds in the hundreds in capital cities that had turned out in the thousands and tens of thousands before. Both parties will read that against the early voting figures now coming in, and only one of those readings can be right.