Hundreds of thousands of people signed up to attend over 1,300 “Hands Off!” protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk yesterday. Today, estimates from groups involved in planning these protests suggest that the number of protesters in the US and abroad may have actually reached millions.
Activist group MoveOn is estimating millions of attendees who participated in the 1,300-plus scheduled events, with over 100,000 turning out for the Washington, DC protest, according to Britt Jacovich, the group’s communications director, who shared this information with The Verge via email. A press release published on the official Hands Off! website corroborates this estimate:
Millions of individuals flooded the streets today at over 1,300 “Hands Off!” peaceful protests across all 50 states, U.S. territories, and a dozen locations globally, demanding an end to the authoritarian overreach by Trump and Musk.
The protests were primarily focused on Musk and Trump, but the issues driving these demonstrations are diverse, ranging from Trump’s trade war and DOGE’s relentless federal agency cuts and layoffs, to LGBTQ+ and other civil rights issues, as well as the war in Ukraine. More than 150 groups participated in organizing these events, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, and labor unions like the AFL-CIO and those representing federal workers, such as the National Treasury Employees Union.
Indivisible, another of the more than 150 organizations involved in planning the protests, reported a similar estimate to MoveOn’s in a statement reported by Common Dreams, stating that “at virtually every single event the crowds eclipsed our estimates.” From Common Dreams:
“This is the largest day of protest since Trump retook office,” the group added. “And in many small towns and cities, activists are reporting the biggest protests their communities have ever seen as everyday people send a clear, unmistakable message to Trump and Musk: Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy.”
Other reported estimates from yesterday are smaller. The Guardian, The Hill, and Al Jazeera each reported numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, millions does not seem implausible. According to Axios, over 45,000 people gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina, with more than 100,000 demonstrating in Washington, DC, and New York City. Organizers reported that over 30,000 showed up in Chicago, as reported by WBEZ Chicago.
One of the most specific numbers reported so far comes from the social media accounts of 50501, a prominent protest movement that has emerged in response to Musk’s actions as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The group posted late yesterday that “over 3 million people across the country stood up to say HANDS OFF our democracy.”
