NORTHAMPTON — More than 100 people gathered in Pulaski Park Saturday afternoon for a No Kings demonstration — an event that last year served as a protest against authoritarianism, but this year held a renewed meaning with midterm elections around the corner.
As the musical group “Singing Resistance Western Mass” harmonized folk songs, members of Indivisible Northampton, the rally’s primary organizing group, roamed the park in reflective vests, urging residents to vote early and track their ballots to ensure their votes are counted.
” This is a little different than other No Kings [demonstrations] because of the focus on the tactic of early voting as a way to interfere with any plans that the Trump administration may have to sabotage the election, especially in terms of intimidating people at the polls on Election Day,” said Beth Lev, a lead organizer with Indivisible Northampton. “We are not alone — there’s a huge group of people that feel the same way and we’re here to help people kind of sustain the work of getting through to people.”
Similar events were held in communities throughout the Valley on Saturday from Easthampton to Hadley and Amherst, among others. Thousands more took place nationwide.
Democrats are seeking to regain control of the U.S. House and Senate in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with Texas, Michigan and Alaska standing as the most closely watched races. Massachusetts, a reliably blue state, has no comparable contested races.
However, in the state’s most high-profile race, incumbent Gov. Maura Healey is looking to secure a second four-year term, while her Republican challenger, Mike Minogue, continues to trail in polls.
Despite the state’s time-tested track record for voting blue, many of those tabling at Pulaski Park raised concerns that voter intimidation and suppression would take hold on Nov. 3.
“There’s this really unique double-edged benefit of voting early, and I mean really early — as soon as you possibly can, because if you vote, it gets recorded, and that’s public information. Every campaign periodically accesses the databases to see who’s cast their ballot,” Laura Brooks, a director for the League of Women Voters Northampton, told the crowd. “Please don’t just vote early, vote as soon as possible. It also scares the bejeebers out of all those tyrants because they know that the people who are voting early are in disagreement with this regime.”
Marta Lev, a member of the Indivisible Northampton Steering Committee, spoke of No Kings’ overall message as one of being pro-democracy and anti-dictatorship — a theme that she said corresponds to the push for early voting.
Describing Indivisible Northampton’s role in encouraging residents to become trained as poll monitors and helping members of the public check their voter registration, Marta Lev said this No King’s Rally stood as more of a celebration of democracy than a protest.
This message echoed through the crowd, as attendees such as Hadley resident Shel Horowitz, who described himself as having been an activist for 55 years, said he attended the Northampton rally in support of the democratic process.
“I’d like to live in a country where democracy is still a thing, and we are under threat right now,” Horowitz said. “There is a government that is trying to take that away from us — a government that seems to have been studying the playbook of people like Hitler and Mussolini and Putin. I feel an obligation as a citizen to stand up for our rights.”
Indivisible Northampton organized the event alongside the groups Climate Action Now, Northampton Resists, River Valley Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Veterans for Peace.
The Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence’s Action Team also held a table at Saturday’s event. Church members such as David Roitman explained how the ideals of Unitarian Universalism align with the fundamental belief in democracy.
“What’s wonderful to me about working with the [Universal Unitarian church] is learning how to support democracy without being partisan about it,” Roitman said. “To get clear about the moral force embedded in democracy — that democracy is not only a political institution, it’s a moral right.”
Donovan Lee, an organizer with Veterans for Peace, said his organization showed up for No Kings to “work against U.S. military hegemony around the world,” noting that while many are currently angered by President Donald Trump’s bombing campaigns in Iran, the U.S. has been engaged in a “perpetual war” for decades.
Though smaller in scale than Northampton’s No Kings Rally, organizers from Indivisible Easthampton stood at Nashawannuck Pond across the street from City Hall, encouraging and offering doughnuts to those who voted early.
Organizer Julie Slavet said she counted more than 150 residents who voted early during the time she was there.
“This is a gathering place at the pond, and we’re right across the municipal building where people voted today, so we wanted to thank people for voting and to appreciate them,” Slavet said. “Early voting is really important because there are a lot of threats to our elections, mostly coming from the administration.”
