Collin County is known for being a Republican stronghold — but hordes of protesters participated in local No Kings protests against the Trump administration’s agenda. Frisco, Plano and McKinney all hosted protests, and the turnout for all three registered in the thousands.
Protesters ranging from age 8 to senior citizens waved homemade signs in the humidity along Preston Road in Plano, where drivers honked and waved in support as they drove by. The crowd wrapped around the block.
About twenty minutes northwest from Plano, families in Frisco brought their kids and their dogs to the protest. The group lined a busy street outside a strip mall with shops and drive-throughs. People sang and danced to Chappell Roan’s popular hit song “Hot To Go” blasting from a portable speaker.
And protesters half an hour east from Frisco in McKinney were packed along the North Central expressway, their signs and clothes damp from the rain. A protester wearing a Scottish kilt walks up and down the sidewalk playing bagpipes for the crowd. Others wore blow up suits of animals, a unicorn, purple dinosaur and a baby.
The Collin County Democratic Party organized the local demonstrations for the No Kings rally, a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump’s agenda. Organizers estimated that 5 million people across the country participated in No Kings protests in June.
Caroline Hong, who grew up in McKinney, said she wasn’t expecting such a large group of people to show up for protests against President Donald Trump in her hometown.
“I’m just impressed that McKinney’s even having a No Kings protest,” Hong said.
Republicans swept the vote in Collin County last year. President Donald Trump won about 55% of the vote, 4% more than he won in 2020. And conservative Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running against Sen. John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate Republican primary, calls Collin County home.
The region is heavily Republican, but it's also home to Democratic state representative Mihaela Plesa from Plano.
Democrats point to Plesa’s success as an example of partisan shifts in the area. She was the first Democrat elected to the statehouse from Collin County in 30 years when she won in 2022.
Population Boom
Jenny Colombo, who has lived in Plano for 35 years, said she noticed a political shift in the city the last decade as more people moved there.
“It’s such a diverse population here now,” Colombo said. “It’s wonderful.”
Collin County is one of the fastest growing areas in the nation according to the Census Bureau. Many of the new residents are immigrants. Grocery stores like H Mart and Patel Brothers cater to the county’s Asian population, which makes up about 18% of the region according to U.S. Census data. It’s not unusual to hear people talking in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or another language in public. About a third of the county speaks a language other than English at home according to the Census.
Collin County isn’t the only part of Texas where this trend is occurring.
Democratic Congresswoman Julie Johnson from Texas U.S. Congressional District 32, who represents a small part of Collin County told KERA in a previous interview Fort Bend County outside of Houston and Williamson County outside of Austin are having similar population shifts.
“You're seeing incredible diversity, a lot of immigrant communities who are not happy with what the Trump administration is doing,” Johnson said.
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at SMU, said the diversity population growth brings may not be an automatic boon for Democrats, as Trump won about 48% of the Texas Hispanic vote in 2024. He said the border counties, which are trending red, gave Republicans the confidence that their recent redistricting plan would succeed.
“The kind of simple equation of minority equals Democrat is becoming a more complicated story than it would have been even 10 years ago,” Wilson said.
New Boundaries
Johnson’s district used to be historically Democratic, covering a quarter of Dallas County and 7% of Collin County. Now, the district encompasses several rural counties.
Texas recently passed a new Congressional district map after Trump called for a rare mid-decade redistricting that would add five Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Statehouse Republicans used population data from the 2020 Census for the new maps. Johnson said the state’s population has grown since then.
“I don't think that the numbers that the Republicans are using to draw these seats, they should not be as confident in their margins that they believe they've buffered in as they are,” she said.
At the Plano protest, Elise Saunders said the turnout shows people across the political spectrum in the area are concerned about the direction the country is going.
“I think that what this says is even conservatives can recognize that we should not have a dictator,” Saunders said. “We should not have a king.”
With midterm elections a year away, voters in historically conservative suburban areas like Collin County could be the deciding factor for Texas politics.
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.
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