Sandoval County Residents Join Thousands at No Kings Protests Statewide

Julia Copley drove to Albuquerque's Montgomery Park on March 30 worried about gas prices, her 4-year-old daughter's economic future, and what kind of country that daughter will inherit. She found 50,000 people there with similar concerns, gathered for a "No Kings" rally that was one of more than 3,100 such events held across the country that weekend.

Copley, a longtime fixture in Sandoval County's civic activism circuit, said she wants the demonstrations to keep going "until Trump has learned that he is not, indeed, a king." But the conversation she kept returning to was economic. Rising gas prices are not abstract, she said: "That is insane! Nobody can afford to drive. We're going to see that trickle down."

Rio Rancho resident Kimberly Krause also made the trip to Montgomery Park, chanting in the crowd during remarks by Georgia activist Stacey Abrams, one of several national and regional speakers at the rally. Organizers followed the speeches with a march through major Albuquerque streets.

Sandoval County Indivisible was among the local groups that joined the Albuquerque coalition behind the event. The organization has become one of the county's most consistent civic presences on federal policy questions, from immigration enforcement to energy costs.

For residents who want a closer outlet, the movement runs every week without traveling to Albuquerque. Under the name "Resist Tyranny Saturday," a group gathers at the intersection of U.S. 550 and NM 528 in the Rio Rancho/Bernalillo corridor each weekend. Organizers built the recurring action at that high-traffic crossroads to sustain visibility and constituent pressure on lawmakers between large-scale demonstrations, keeping the concerns Copley raised at Montgomery Park visible week after week at Rio Rancho's own front door.