Marin ‘No Kings’ protests draw thousands countywide

An estimated 11,000 demonstrators gathered across Marin on Saturday as part of the “No Kings” nationwide movement to protest Trump administration policies and promote action aimed at political change.

Rallies were held throughout the county. The largest, at an estimated 6,000 demonstrators, packed the Marin County Civic Center fairgrounds — a crowd similar to a “No Kings” protest held there in June. Another 5,000 people were present at rallies in Corte Madera, Novato, Sausalito and western Marin, organizers said.

Speakers at the Civic Center demonstration included San Rafael Democrats Rep. Jared Huffman and Assemblymember Damon Connolly; Supervisor Eric Lucan; Raquel Berlanga Rojas, a leader of the group Fuerzas Unidas; the Rev. Floyd Thompkins of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Marin City; and Rohnert Park Councilmember Jackie Elward.

“I loved that every speaker, to a person, galvanized the crowd to action,” said Patty Hoyt, an organizer, who said the event included information booths staffed by about a dozen groups to encourage participants to stay engaged.

Demonstrators also assembled on freeway overpasses to denounce President Donald Trump’s policies, adorning the spans with banners and signs and encouraging motorists to honk for various causes.

The Marin message echoed the national pro-democracy sentiment and included an objection to attempts to “rig” the 2026 midterm elections, organizers said. It also included a push for yes on California’s Proposition 50 on Nov. 4. The proposition would realign congressional districts in response to Republicans’ move to scramble Texas districts in their favor.

“Voting yes on Prop. 50 is a very real and tangible vote against Trump and his efforts to subvert our democracy,” Connolly said.

Greenbrae resident Virginia Beauchamp said she turned out to the Civic Center event because she believes the country is headed in the wrong direction.

“We’re in big trouble right now,” she said. “I just feel like it is great to have like-minded people show each other that we’re all on the same side. We don’t agree with what’s going on right now, and I hope it helps sort of change the tide.”

Pamela Palmer, a San Rafael resident, said she did not want to “live in an oligarchy.”

“I think it is very important that we come out and speak our voice, peacefully, and let the powers that be know that it’s not to have American citizens taken off the streets illegally,” she said.

Tiburon residents Sheila Puckett, 85, and husband Myron Puckett, 87, said they are experienced in speaking their minds at political demonstrations. Sheila Puckett said she’s “a little fed up with what’s going on in politics right now.”

“I’m worried about my four grandchildren,” Myron Puckett said. “I don’t want them to grow up in an authoritarian country.”

Millions turned out Saturday at about 2,700 protest sites in major cities and smaller communities across the U.S. Thousands of protests drew residents in suburbs and rural areas, including places that helped propel Trump into his second term.

The national “day of action” was the third major show of public defiance since Trump took office again in January and began his push to dramatically reshape the American government and economy. In June, more than 140,000 attended anti-Trump protests in the Bay Area. The protests were largely peaceful.

Across the Bay Area, Democratic-aligned groups planned about 50 protests in San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Hayward, Pittsburg and other cities.

Organizers in San Jose estimated more than 10,000 people demonstrators there. Activists held signs condemning Trump and his approach to governing: “Moron with a war on,” read one sign; “ICE is the Gestapo,” read another.

Among the protesters at St. James Park in San Jose was Isabella Moreno, 20, who moved to San Jose a week ago from the Central Valley and is searching for a job as an emergency medical technician.

Moreno said the Trump administration poses a threat to Medicare and Medicaid. She said she also attended the protest to stump for Measure A, Santa Clara County’s proposed five-eighths-of-a-cent sales tax increase to counteract the estimated billion dollars annually in lost federal revenue to the county.

“No Kings,” Moreno said. “The only real king is God.”

“History has its eyes on you,” read one sign hoisted by Louise Sumpter of Santa Clara.

“Democracy is for everybody, and we need to fight for it,” she said.

The rallies unfolding Saturday appeared “pretty big” and focused on a range of issues, from defending gay rights and climate action, said Larry Gerston, a political science professor at San Jose State University.

“We know that there are massive numbers of people who have their issues with the Trump administration,” Gerston said.

For his part, Trump has pushed back against his characterization as a king. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican ally of the president, has blasted the marches as un-American dens of “pro-Hamas” and “Marxist” agitators.

Earlier this week, Johnson said Democratic lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were seeking to drag out the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government.

The Republican rhetoric didn’t appear to give protesters pause in the Bay Area on Saturday, and local Republicans appeared to stay on the sidelines.

The rallies in Oakland and San Jose did not see significant counter-protests, and a spokesperson for California GOP Chair Corrin Rankin did not respond to a text seeking comment on Democrats painting Trump as authoritarian. Calls to Republican officials in a number of Bay Area counties were not immediately returned.

In San Francisco, hundreds of activists went viral for creating a “human banner” at Ocean Beach that read “No Kings” and “Yes on 50” — a nod to Proposition 50.

About 20 minutes before a demonstration started in Walnut Creek, hundreds gathered in the city’s downtown shopping center.

It was the first protest for 78-year-old Concord resident Pay Saye.

“I’ve never felt more afraid of losing the America I grew up in,” she said, adding that Trump “is ruining everything we believe in — America and how it started.” She was especially concerned about the “erosion of checks and balances” under the Trump administration.

In Oakland, the rally at Lake Merritt may have seemed more like a celebration than an urgent protest were it not for signage declaring that the U.S. was giving way to fascism.

Melvin Doweary, an 80-year-old Oakland resident, held a poster depicting the word “democracy” as letter blocks tumbling apart.

“This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” Doweary said of the Trump administration. “I don’t know where this goes from here.”

The peaceful atmosphere became more excited when a flood of thousands more demonstrators arrived to the lake’s amphitheater, having marched from Wilma Chan Park a half-mile away. The rally’s emcee, Oakland school board vice president Valarie Bachelor, estimated 10,000 people were present.

Mayor Barbara Lee framed her speech at Saturday’s rally in Oakland around patriotism — the kind, she said, that protects civil liberties instead of “tearing apart our democracy.”

“We cannot let them shrink democracy while they shout freedom,” Lee said. “We cannot let them crown a king while they wave our flag.”

Bay Area News Group writers Grant Stringer, Kyle Martin, Shomik Mukherjee and Martha Ross contributed to this report.