Special Coverage: No Kings II in Key Largo, Florida

October 18, 2025

Key Largo, Florida

About 300 people, I think (200-300 was my estimate), were at the Key Largo demonstration when I left at 11 AM. Key Largo is about an hour south of Miami and an hour and a half north and east of Key West. There is only one road between Homestead, Florida and Key West, Florida and this protest is on it.

The power of small protests in small areas

While Miami's largest protest, which was held at the site of previous protests, reportedly had around 4,500 people attend, and while another southern cultural capitol, Atlanta, saw 10,000 protesters, 200-300 may seem like an insignificant number. Indeed, one reason I made sure to document this protest was that I assumed, correctly it appears, that no other press would bother.

Yet, this protest packed a punch for a few reasons.

One, as noted, the Key Largo protest site sits on the only road through Key Largo thus the only road between tourist meccas Key West and Miami. Literally, every car that went through Key Largo saw this protest. Contrast that to Miami's protest on a busy street named Biscayne Blvd that most Miami-Dade residents actively avoid whenever possible and people passing through Miami likely don't even know exists by its local name (it is US 1, which locals often call Highway Won't, playing on the word "one" and the fact that the road is frequently slow).

Interstate 95 is near Biscayne Blvd at that point so people not headed to Downtown Miami specifically would likely take that route...unless they are taking the "Florida Turnpike" which tries to avoid Miami altogether, skirting the western suburbs, on its way to...Key Largo (it ends just short of Key Largo in Homestead, FWIW). So, while the impressive protest in Miami may have been seen by some tourists and people who live in the area, everyone else could avoid it.

Two, while 4500 is an impressive turnout, especially compared to perhaps 200 people, if we look at the percentage of local residents that represents we get a different picture.

The City of Miami has a population of 450,000 people, making the turnout for the city of Miami exactly 1%. Not too shabby for a supposedly red city (technically, Harris won the city of Miami by 1%, though she was the first Democrat to lose the county in a generation). But at the low number of 200 protesters in Key Largo, with a population of 12,500, that means 60% more of the population (1.6%) showed up on Saturday than Miami. If we go with the more likely attendance of 300 (or more) we get all the way to 2.5% of the Key Largo population on a beautiful day...at the start of tourist season when a huge percentage of the population needs to work.

And Monroe County, which Key Largo is one of the larger population centers therein, is a Trump +18 County, by the way.

While Miami's much larger protest was impressive, the relatively tiny protest in Key Largo held its own and then some by bringing out much larger percentage (perhaps 250% larger) of the population on a road that every car driving through the city had to see.

Not too shabby.

But why did I emphasize the city of Miami? That's the because Miami-Dade County, where the residents are almost entirely in the practical city grid non-locals would call Miami, has 2.7 million residents. All of these residents look to the area near Biscayne Blvd as the political capital of their local world, no matter their hyper local municipality. The County Council, which is so much more important than any City Council, including Miami's, that the others are almost (but not quite) an afterthought, has its chambers a short walk from Biscayne Blvd. So that 2.7 million all could think of the Torch of Friendship as their protest site.

By contrast, Monroe County, where Key Largo sits, has a total population of 83,000 spread out over a much less densely populated area that has to navigate one road for the whole county.

Anyway, yay First Amendment.

It is worth noting that while the average age of the protesters was perhaps sixty years old, that didn't stop the crowd from blasting Rage Against the Machine out of the event speakers.

I saw one counter protester, holding a "Trump Won" sign, as I was driving away from the event and I've given him the last word in this short video.

He's right after the unicorn offering congress balls.

I'll let some pictures do the talking for now.