Did the 2025 demonstrations affect the November voting?

Democracy won big at the polls on November 4. Those results followed a growing wave of demonstrations nationwide, including the "No Kings" demonstrations in June and October. But did the demonstrations have anything to do with the results? If we participate in demonstrations in 2026, can we expect them to influence the November 2026 mid-term elections?

To try to answer that question, we reviewed a number of rigorous studies looking at past demonstrations and elections. Together, these studies look at demonstrations and results from as far back as the civil rights movement to as recent as Black Lives Matter and the 2020 elections. The bad news is that these studies might be out of date. The good news is that they avoid "recency bias". (Links to the most useful studies are included at the bottom of this post.)

The studies clearly conclude that demonstrations do affect election outcomes. They can increase votes for candidates aligned with the demonstrations, reduce votes for those on the other side, and raise turnout overall.

While the strongest impacts occur in the same places where demonstrations occur, there are some effects that have a broader impact. Demonstrations affect election outcomes in several ways:

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Demonstrations motivate those who participate, increasing their propensity to vote (especially locally).

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Demonstrations focus issues and generate attention to them in ways that reach other potential voters who are less informed and less involved.

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Demonstrations generate support for a position and sympathetic candidates (as long as the demonstrations remain non-violent), with measurable impacts on voter turn-out and political donations (including donations "exported" from demonstration areas to elections elsewhere).

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Interestingly, demonstrations motivate more "quality" candidates to run for office.

As they say in the financial ads: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." But with so much at stake for the future of democracy, we can't afford to sit back and wait for guarantees. We need to each find the ways that we can help.

Below are some of the most useful studies, if you want to read them and draw your own conclusions. If you agree or disagree with our conclusions , please feel free to let us know fosherandnow@gmail.com.

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