‘No Kings’ Protesters Reject Political Violence, Survey Shows

US protesters increasingly reject political violence, No Kings study says

TO Dan Vergano edited by Ginna Bryner

The latest “No Kings” marches in the US marked a sharp shift in protesters away from embracing political violence, suggests one early poll sociologists.

Millions of people across the country marched Saturday to protest actions by the Trump administration they see as undermining democracy. In one of the first polls, pollsters found that 59 percent of protesters in Washington, D.C., said they opposed political violence, a departure from similar polls taken during previous protests.

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Marchers there were “radically less supportive of political violence” than those previously surveyed, said sociologist Dana Fisher of American University, whose team has studied four major protests since January. “We also saw fewer signs of violence and many more people in costumes.”

Led by Fisher and her American University colleague Armand Azedi, a team equipped with computer tablets and QR codes interviewed 348 participants in a protest march in Washington, D.C., that may have attracted more than 200,000 people. At the No Kings protest in Philadelphia in June, about 40 percent of marchers agreed that “Americans may have to resort to violence to save our country,” the team found. But on Saturday, only 23 percent agreed in the nation's capital.

Although the survey results literally just came off the scientists' tablets, the shift is worth noting, Fisher says. “My initial interpretation is that the change of heart was in response to recent killings” that were politically motivated, she says, along with headlines about violent acts committed by federal agents moving to cities. Additionally, march organizers emphasized peaceful protest leading up to the event.

Also before the march, administration officials warned: “leftist violence” associated with the protests. However, the Associated Press described Saturday's events as a non-violent action. “street party” marching bands, costumes and banners. A Harvard Kennedy School Report released last week showed that anti-Trump protests have spread deeper into areas of the US where most people live. voted for Donald Trump in 2024.

“We still don't see students joining these crowds,” Fisher says, emphasizing that more research on the protests is needed to confirm significant changes in U.S. public opinion. Although the survey showed that the marchers included more young people than in previous years, the majority were highly educated white women.

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