How Rural America Impacted No Kings and No Kings Impacts Rural America

The contributions of rural America made No Kings historic, and the groundwork laid by No Kings rallies is especially important in rural America

The No Kings rallies on Saturday were the largest in the history of the United States, with 8 million people participating across the country in 3,300 locations – a jump from 7 million in October in 2,700 locations. According to reports, much of this growth, particularly the widening geographic spread, was because of the bravery and hard work of rural people stepping up in their small towns to lead a No Kings protest for the first time– often in deep, ruby red turf that went to Trump by 70-30 margins or worse. “Organizers said two-thirds of participants who signed up live in suburban, small-town, or rural areas. That’s a 40% increase over last time in protesters from outside big cities.”

The increase in outreach to rural areas was part of the No Kings strategy, as CNN explained:

Almost half the day’s protests took place in red states, or a “battleground area,” organizers said. The diversity and breadth of the rallies reflect a “very intentional” push to organize beyond traditional Democratic strongholds, said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, which helped organize protests.

Carrabassett Valley and Rangely, Maine Population: About 2,000 Turnout: 200 Percentage: 10%

The role of rural America in this moment is what helped make the most recent No Kings historic. While solidly blue places may be approaching saturation, rural America provided so much of the growth we saw last Saturday and showed that we have so much more room to run in rural areas. If we want our movement to continue to grow, we need to be investing in the rural leaders that made miracles happen in small rural red towns, and reaching into previously unreachable places.

You can see a small sampling of rural No Kings protests in this Bluesky thread! Please reply and add your own! You have probably heard of Erica Chenoweth’s finding that it takes at least 3.5% of the population to be mobilized to topple a dictator. Most of these small but mighty rural organizers got above that threshold in mostly very difficult, very deep-red terrain, with a smaller pool of supporters to pull from.

Rural growth of No Kings rallies is vital to adding to our national numbers and breaking records, but it also holds disproportionate strategic weight because of the disproportionate power of rural voters.

Running up the margins in cities is great, but rural America is strategically essential to winning back governing power. Those rural small-town protests might have fewer numbers than bigger cities, but they are a glimpse of a potential to shift an electorate that Republicans can’t afford to lose. Republicans are barely hanging on to the slimmest of majorities, and all that is separating them from their current governing power to the dustbin of history is a few percentage points off their lopsided margins in rural America. If people are brave and bold enough to stand up in a 70/30 Trump county, make a sign, and stand at the intersection for an afternoon – and surprisingly get folks to honk in support – what lengths will they be willing to go to between now and election day?

So, a couple dozen people at a rural small town No Kings rally packs a punch – one that is probably knocking the wind out of Republican strategists this week.

Humboldt, Kansas Pop. 1800 Turnout: 170 Percentage: 9.4%

Of course, as No Kings reaches unprecedented, record breaking heights, some armchair critics are going to emerge from the peanut gallery. No one who participated in the No Kings rallies actually expected Donald Trump to drop to his knees and crawl out of the White House crying because he saw some facebook photos of devastatingly clever handmade signs, but nonetheless some people felt the need to construct a straw man. According to them, the protests were performative and they wouldn’t actually change anything. This is a fundamental misreading of the importance of protest and the importance of No Kings, especially in rural America.

Fort Benton, Montana Population: 1470 Turnout: 100 Percentage: 6.8%

We at RuralOrganizing.org have always said, “Get visible, get vocal, get votes.” Rural No Kings rallies are an essential component of that formula. In rural areas and small towns, it can feel lonely being against the Trump administration. If you live in a 60/40 or 70/30 Trump county you’re probably not winning any local elections, your neighbors might have giant Trump flags carpeting your visual landscape, and a minority of especially aggressive and violent Trump supporters might actually threaten you with violence. It’s easy to feel like no one else shares your values, and if you feel that way, it’s easy to get discouraged and not bother to participate politically or even vote. In many rural towns, democrats literally feel like they are the only one, when 30% or 40% of their neighbors feel just like them, but they just ALSO feel like they are the only ones. So rural people with progressive values remain isolated and inactive. And we’re leaving so many strategic votes on the table. While the distance between people who feel like we’re on the wrong track and those who would vote democrat is just one point in big cities, there is an 11 point gap to make up between the people who are dissatisfied with the way things are going and those who are willing to vote Democratic. Again, rural communities represent tremendous opportunity.

But bridging that gap takes hard work and effort from local, rural messengers that people trust – neighbors, teachers, doctors and nurses, farmers, small business people, and just the folks that seem to know everyone else in town. It’s not going to come from the perfect TV ad, and unfortunately it’s not going to come from an earnest 22-year old getting dumped into town three months before the election to knock doors. That change is going to come from the very people who organized and attended rural small town No Kings rallies this weekend.

We have seen that something as simple as putting up a yard sign helps break the cycle of isolation and inaction by breaking up the visual landscape of Trump signs with a visible permission structure to take a different path. Most importantly, our yard signs generate between 5-7 authentic, neighbor-to-neighbor conversations per sign. We heard from rural organizers across the country that they got even bigger turnout to No Kings than in October – and they were surprised by how many honks of support they heard from people as well.

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico Population: 5800 Turnout: 350 Percentage: 6%

Many of those same people who organized and attended small town rural No Kings rallies are fighting back against ICE detention centers that DHS is trying to build in rural communities, and they’re also building community defense networks to protect their immigrant neighbors and push back on ICE. At RuralOrganizing.org we have trained over 1500 rural people in community immigration defense networks, anti-detention center organizing, and blocking and breaking 287(g) agreements to cooperate with ICE. I can guarantee you that most of those 1500 rural people were at the No Kings rallies, recruiting more of their neighbors into their work.

And as much as rural communities contributed to the national No Kings movement, the No Kings movement has contributed to rural communities, because it gives people something to organize towards, for local leaders to collaborate and learn to work together, for local people to be visible in their communities and build relationships, and for organizers to pull people into deeper work doing immigrant defense, mutual aid, or electoral organizing.

Rural America spread the No Kings message into the heart of the Republican base to show that opposition to the regime is growing everywhere, including the very places where the regime thinks it is the strongest. You may have been amazed by the aerial shots of tens or hundreds of thousands of people marching in New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles, but you should also be in awe of all the gatherings of 12 people at intersections in towns of 500, because those rural organizers represent an essential piece of what is required to take down this regime.