COLUMBUS — A day of No Kings rallies across Columbus on Saturday, Oct. 17, built to one message — vote, and vote early — culminating in a rally on the Ohio Statehouse lawn that drew hundreds of people downtown.
The Columbus events were part of a nationwide No Kings day of action and one of more than 60 early-voting events held across Ohio on Saturday, 17 days before the Nov. 3 midterm election. Unlike a traditional protest march, the day’s organizing was themed entirely around turnout: getting attendees to cast early ballots themselves and to bring family, friends, and neighbors to the polls with them.
“You’re the ones who have to lead your pack of people — your family, your friends — and tell them to vote early,” Mia Lewis, an organizer with Indivisible, told the Statehouse crowd. Many attendees carried homemade signs, some criticizing President Donald Trump, data centers, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alongside signs spelling out why, when, and where the sign-holder planned to vote.
Earlier in the day, a midday rally at Schiller Park in German Village drew dozens of attendees, where organizers and Democratic candidates pressed the crowd not only to vote early — more than half of those present said they already had — but to volunteer to knock on doors in the campaign’s final weeks.
Canvassing was the day’s second theme. Matt Caffrey told the German Village crowd he has been canvassing the South Side, where turnout in some midterm elections has fallen as low as 19 percent, and described registering voters and having long conversations at front doors. “It makes people feel heard and seen for the first time in a long time — people are opening their doors; they’re having long conversations with us,” Caffrey said.
Don Leonard, the Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Mike Carey in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, which includes much of German Village, addressed both the Schiller Park rally and the Statehouse event, telling attendees that the American people are under attack and that voting is the response.
Organizers describe the No Kings effort as a nonpartisan voter participation campaign aimed at making sure every eligible voter has a plan and knows their early voting options, though Saturday’s Columbus crowds and speakers leaned heavily Democratic. Events ran throughout the day at sites across the metro area before the late-afternoon Statehouse gathering brought the day to a close.
For Columbus voters, the practical takeaway is time: early voting is open now, and Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, is just over two weeks away. Saturday’s rallies were built to turn a protest crowd into a turnout operation — and organizers will measure the day not by the signs on the Statehouse lawn, but by how many of the people carrying them have a ballot cast before Nov. 3.
