Record numbers of protestors turned out in cities and communities all along California’s Central Valley for the No Kings protest Saturday, reflecting growing frustration with the Trump Administration even in what are traditionally more conservative parts of the state.
Organizers say more than 2,500 protests and similar rallies took place across the country, with overall turnout estimated to have topped 7 million.
“As a king, you don’t care about your people. You care about maintaining power,” Shannon McMahon told local news outlet Shasta Scout in Redding, in largely rural and deeply red Shasta County, where more than 3,000 people showed up Saturday.
“And right now, I see the administration doing everything they can to maintain power,” McMahon said. “They say they’re doing what the voters asked for. But I’ve talked to people who voted for Trump; this is not what they asked for.”
Donald Trump won more than 60% of the vote in Shasta County in 2024. The area has drawn attention in recent years as a bastion of far-right activism in the state.
In Chico, about 70 miles south of Redding, more than 5,000 people marched in what organizers say may be the largest single day protest in the city’s history.
“This was so much bigger than even Kings 1,” Laurel Yorks, a march organizer, told Chico Sol, referring to protests in June that drew an estimated 5 million people nationwide.
“What it does is, it gives us our power back,” Yorks said. “We’ve been astounded by all the corruption and cruelty, and it gets worse and worse. Nobody’s coming to save us. We know now it’s our job, we have to get together, we have to save us.”
Chico, a college town in Butte County, is evenly split among conservative and liberal voters. The county was among eight in California that shifted to Trump in the last election.
Administration officials have been quick to denounce the protests, spearheaded by Indivisible, a national coalition of grassroots networks. President Trump took to FOX News on Friday to insist, “I’m not a king.” House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans described Saturday’s protests as a “hate America” rally.
In Fresno, reporter Juan Esparza with the Fresno Bee admitted that he “failed miserably Saturday morning” in his quest to “locate the haters, the communists… the folks who despise the United States.”
Asked by Esparza if he had seen any haters, Fresno resident David Joseph replied, “No, just people happy to see like-minded people.” Fellow protestor and Madera resident Javier Velez then chimed in. “All I see are people who are concerned about the economy,” said Velez, adding that no, he had not been paid to show up.
Communities across the heavily agriculture dependent Central Valley have been impacted by Trump Administration policies, including ICE raids that have led to a labor shortage as large numbers of migrant farm workers stay home for fear of being apprehended. One study out of UC Merced suggests the state could lose up to $275 billion in lost economic activity as a result of rampant deportations.
Saturday’s protests were largely peaceful across the county, with few reports of violence breaking out despite repeated warnings by Republican officials. Both Texas Gov. Greg Abbot and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin deployed National Guard troops ahead of Saturday’s events, with Abbot describing protests in Austin as “an antifa-linked demonstration.”
Instead, protests were marked by colorful signs and even more colorful costumes—including inflatable dinosaurs—in solidarity with protestors in Portland, Oregon, where the president has deployed National Guard soldiers that have, in videos that have since gone viral, clashed with T-rexes, frogs and other outrageously clad protestors.
No Kings in America Since 1776 was a common refrain seen on many signs. One protestor in Redding carried a sign that read, “I like my America blended, HOLD THE ICE,” in reference to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which has been conducting raids nationwide since the start of the year as part of the Trump Administration’s campaign of mass deportation.
Other signs decried fascism, corruption and Trump’s alleged links to the late financier and convicted child sex offender Jefferey Epstein, among other issues. “Imagine hating immigrants more than pedophiles,” read one sign in Chico.
Prop. 50 was another recurring theme among marchers. The ballot measure put forward by California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks to redraw the state’s congressional maps in favor of Democrats. The bill comes in response to aggressive efforts by the Trump Administration to redraw maps in Republican-led states including Texas.
Polling shows a majority of Californians appear to support the measure, which could play a role in which party control Congress in upcoming elections.
“What we have today is an out-of-control president and a silent Congress,” Robert S. Tafoya, a retired Kern County Superior Court judge who served on the bench from 2002 until his retirement in 2023, told the crowd in Bakersfield, reports South Kern Sol. “We have to change the composition of Congress. Proposition 50 is about protecting fair elections and saving our democracy.”
Hundreds of people marched in Bakersfield on Saturday under the banner of “Power belongs to the people.”
Organizers there, including the Dolores Huerta Action Fund, Working Families Power, SEIU Local 521, ACLU SoCal, Democratic Women of Kern, and the Rapid Response Network of Kern said the march demonstrates the “importance of community organizing and collective action.”
“We gather not in despair, but in defiance,” David Torres, a Bakersfield attorney and retired U.S. Marine and Army officer who served nearly 40 years, retiring as a full colonel, told the crowd, reports South Kern Sol.
“No ruler stands above the law, and no man commands our conscience,” he continued. “The law is meant to be the shield of the weak, not the sword of the powerful.”
