Running for office is difficult, but it’s even harder when you don’t have the support of a party apparatus behind you, or even someone else who can serve as the treasurer of your campaign.
On this episode, we’re talking to someone doing just that. Gene Kininmonth runs a rowing program in High Point, North Carolina, and threw his hat into the ring on the day before the candidate deadline. We talk about what led him into politics, what it’s like being an unaffiliated candidate in a non-partisan-in-name-only race, and his tactics to break through.
Chris Oates 0:07
Most political coverage in the United States is about Washington. And it's about the arguments and the fights and the campaigns between the two major political parties. But most elected officials in the United States, about 90% of all elected officials in the US are elected at the local level. And most of those races are officially nonpartisan. Now, a lot of times they are effectively partisan. You know, there's the one candidate supported by the Democratic Party in the area, the other one supported by the Republican Party in the area, but they're officially nonpartisan. And many people who run are truly independent. They're not running with the support of either of the major parties.
Today, we're going to be talking to one such candidate. He's running for the mayor of High Point, North Carolina, a city of around 100,000 people. And we're going to talk not only about how someone unaffiliated who has never run for office before chose to get into the race, but also what are some of the unique constraints and hurdles but also possibly opportunities by running a truly unaffiliated race without either of the parties supporting you.
Gene Kininmonth 1:41
Well, Chris, I can tell from that intro, you are really scared to try and pronounce my last name.
Chris Oates 1:46
Yes, I realized that I got into the intro, I forgot to ask how to pronounce it.
Gene Kininmonth 1:54
That's okay. That's everybody. So my name is Gene Kininmonth. And yes, I do run a rowing program in High Point North Carolina. In addition to having a program for kids and adults of all ages, we also run some pretty significant international rowing events here in the city. And in fact, next week, we have the Ukrainian Olympic team coming in to race, Duke University and Clemson right here in High Point. So that's, that's what I do for my day job.
And, yeah, why I'm running for mayor. That's, that's, that's a really, really big question. And I think perhaps that's one that, you know, a lot of people who are thinking of entering into politics, you know, they have to ask themselves that question, first of all, and for me, and I think probably for most people who first entered politics, you know, it really something gnaws at your heart where you see there's something wrong in your community, that you'd see that there's a solution for, and no one's really talking about it.
And so for me, that was education of kids in our schools, at public schools, crime on the streets, and just really the lack of hope, in a big part of our community that I think we can really turn around. And I think the the format of turning that around is pretty simple. And that's why I'm running for mayor of high points.
Chris Oates 3:21
Now, let's get back a little bit to earlier in your story, because as you can tell from the accent, I'm guessing you grew up a little bit further away from high point maybe on the other side of the world, and what what was what brought you first of all, to the United States and then later to High Point?
Gene Kininmonth 3:38
Yeah, so actually, I was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. Yes, but learn to speak in Melbourne, Australia. And we also learn to row and fell in love with the sport of growing third generation row and my grandfather was our state rarer in Australia. And so it's been in the family. My sister in law is an Australian Olympian. It's been in our family for a long time.
But yeah, when when I graduated college in Australia, country just gone into a really, really serious recession in 1999 to 91, which will sort of tell you how old I am. And everyone in my graduating class, had their job offers rescinded six months before graduation, I was all set to work for Arthur Andersen the accounting firm at the time. And my letter got a letter of offer got rescinded. And so most of most of my classmates that year, decided to go backpacking through Europe for 12 months wait for the economy to pick up. And because I had the US citizenship from being born in the US, you know, I came back to the US and I've been living here ever since.
Chris Oates 4:50
We hear about, you know, oh, the economy might go into a recession. And it's this abstract thing, but like it actually, I think this is one of the things that often is hard. To realize when we talk about economic matters, that it actually matters to people in their life choices, and that if the economy goes into recession that is great a graduating class, I mean, I graduated college in 2007. And a lot of my fellow classmates who decided to take a year to, you know, explore, came back into a financial crisis. And you know, for a lot of them and set them back, you know, financially it sets people back years, if that happens to you.
Gene Kininmonth 5:25
That one year exploring can sometimes turn into three.
Chris Oates 5:27
So you grew up rowing. And I should mention that I also rowed for two turns in graduate school, I may have been one of the worst rowers that the program has ever seen. Being on the river was fine, but I hated the the the training in the gym, which rolling is, I believe, mostly training.
Gene Kininmonth 5:46
It's a lot of training. Yes, you know, you go out and you train two hours a day, six days a week to then go and do a six minute race, maybe every two weeks for three times in a semester. So the rewards are pretty slim compared to the work you've put in. But for true rowers, the work you put in is to reward
Chris Oates 6:09
I was definitely not a true rower. I enjoyed being on a boat. And if I had to row a little bit on the boat, I was fine with that, but put me on the rowing machine, I didn't care for that. But I looked at your bio and rowing is still a part of your life. You were a collegiate coach, and you've worked with Olympians. What was that like?
Gene Kininmonth 6:40
You know, I would actually say, it's not really that different if you've got self made motivated people, whether they're 15, or 25, you know, they're self motivated, and they're still really the same type of person, same type of personality. And you know, to do well, rowing, you've got to be quite self motivated. And that comes from enjoying the process of doing the work on the water and in the gym.
But it also, it also involves enjoying being with other people, like minded people with similar goals, that's a big reward, you said you like being in the boat, you know, being in the boat is a real great experience of camaraderie that are all pulled together at the same time and in the same direction.
And that's somewhat like community building. So, yeah, I would say it's not as different as you might think. Now, if there was professional rowing, sort of like the NBA or the NFL, I think that would be very, very different, especially in sports, where people might succumb to injuries and in the process of doing what they do, but I think when you're when you're taking a wage, or you're, you know, you're in it for the money, that's a different game. And, you know, we don't really have to be concerned about that so much in rowing.
Chris Oates 7:57
To get to politics, it is a bit like politics, mostly doing hard work, that people don't recognize, and then for that one election day, and so that might as well serve as a transition for how did you start the program in High Point? And how did that lead you into the political realm? Was it just by being around the community? Or was it something else that made you say, I don't want to do this solely anymore? I want to I want to jump in and put my name on a ballot?
Gene Kininmonth 8:28
Yeah, so good question. I don't, I wouldn't say the rowing influenced my decision to enter politics at all. I think that really more came from when, during the pandemic, I was fortunate, I always went to private schools when I was a kid. And I was also able to put my two boys who were 12 and 14 now into private school. But then during the pandemic, the private schools kept wanting their tuition fees paid, but they really weren't providing a lot other than sending them home. Here's some books. They were in very little in the way of zoom calls. And I thought, well, I'm going to take a look at the public schools here and see what's going on there. Rather than pay up, you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars for private school tuition, with not much return.
So when my boys entered public schools, and they go to a school here in High Point called Allen Jay Prep, middle school, fantastic school. People say a lot of bad things about public schools, but our experience was, you know, the teachers are fantastic. The principal’s fantastic. They do a lot of really innovative things there. It is a magnet school, so it's a little different to your typical public school.
But while all of that was great, and my boys were doing well, also, when the reports came home, I saw that over 50% of the class was failing on state exams, and I couldn't understand why. And so that that made me very curious as to what was going on in these public schools. And, you know, when I talked to people about it, especially business leaders, they're like, you're not allowed to talk about the public schools, you know, we don't want to bring down High Point by talking about the public schools here.
Because in High Point 43% of students are not proficient in reading 37% are not proficient in math. And, you know, it's really, really sad, what's going on with the learning outcomes that are coming from it. But it hasn't been for the last six years in business leaders have actually said they wouldn't support candidates that talk about the public schools.
And so, yeah, this just led to a real frustration for me before I even thought about entering politics, because why are we just kind of trying to whitewash the system that is not working for our kids. And so, I entered the race, the day before candidates closed, I was the fourth person to enter, we have a primary coming up in a week and a half, where it'll be whittled down from four to two.
So I entered the race thinking, you know, I really want to have an impact on education. And in the process of really trying to figure out how we can fix education, I came to believe that the problem is not really in the schools. It's what's happened to these kids prior to entering the schools, and while they're in their communities, as they grew up in these communities before they make it to the schools.
Our public schools in High Point, I think it's 85%, African American kids. And you look at, you know, the history of the South Side of High Point, which is really been just devastated by generations of discrimination, redlining, and poor lending practices that excluded them. And I think we're seeing the generational effects on these kids today, even though, you know, we, we like to believe everyone has civil rights, and everyone's equal, because we've missed out on so many opportunities for so many generations, we're seeing the impact of that. And I feel like it's getting worse on the South Side of town.
So, in that process, someone said, Why don't you run for the Board of Education. And I'm like, I don't think this is about education. This is about community building. And so you know, put forth a bunch of ideas, to really go about sort of trying to see how we can fix the community down on the South Side of High Point.
Chris Oates 12:45
You mentioned that you declared the day before candidates closed. Can you walk us through the process? Was it a conversation with your family of, Should I do it? Am I going to do it? What was the moment where you said, like, Yes, I am going to put my name down and see what happens.
Gene Kininmonth 13:03
I had to convince my wife, first of all, that this was something that I could do. We'd never talked politics. I'm an unaffiliated candidate, but had in the past, had Republican leanings. My wife is also an independent and unaffiliated voter, but has often led to the left in the past. So you know, when you look at what's been going on in national politics for the last eight years, you know, we've had some pretty strong differences of opinions in our household, much like many households across the country, when husbands and wives have different views.
But when it came to, you know, our local politics here, what the issues are, and what potentially are the best solutions? And I think that just we're on the same page. And so ultimately, you know, I got my wife Amy's support to go ahead with that.
Chris Oates 14:05
You mentioned unaffiliated. I know on the website, it says it wasn't Democrat or Republican, it says “for High Point.” Is the mayoral race a partisan race, or is it officially nonpartisan, but effectively partisan? How does it work, just the mechanics of it?
Gene Kininmonth 14:21
Yeah. So it's a nonpartisan election. However, if you're a registered Republican, you are getting the text messages and the letters from the Republican Party to vote for one candidate. And likewise, if you're registered democrat, you're getting the text messages from the Democrat party. So politics, party politics definitely plays a significant role in this election in High Point and has for many years now.
Chris Oates 14:50
And so that means that I mean, for for your campaign, if it's independent, no party support are there.
Gene Kininmonth 14:57
Yeah. And so I I have to rely on the credibility of the of the ideas that I'm putting forward as policies to really fix these issues. And I have to really hope that that the ideas I'm coming up with will resonate with the unaffiliated independent voters because there's more of them than Republicans or Democrats. Typically, though, they're trained to pick one or the other. And so it's even easier for them to come forward and pick an unaffiliated candidate.
Chris Oates 15:33
What's the campaigning? I assume you're not flying around on Air Force One around around town, but is it door to door knocking? Is it speaking at community events? And how are you getting your message out?
Gene Kininmonth 15:45
I think I've definitely outworked the other candidates. I have done a lot of door knocking in this community. And if there was no one home, which is most people, I would leave my notepads on their front doorstep. And, you know, my little notepad just says things to do in October 10 - Elect Gene Kininmonth, and then they can use the rest of it for their shopping list.
So I hope that that sits on their kitchen counter for at least a few weeks, until until election day, because I know if someone hands me a notepad that I'm holding on to that. I always use those things, no matter what it's for.
So I've done a lot of door knocking. We've got 110,000 people in this city. So I don't really know how effective door knocking is. Everyone says that's the way to go. But there are just so many people out there. I've restricted my door knocking to people who voted in primaries in the past. So that really cuts it down to about 5000 people, and I think we have reached have probably knocked on 2500 to 3000 doors in the last six to seven weeks.
Chris Oates 16:56
Another question I had is the kind of local media environment. I spoke to a city councilor in where I'm living, which is Somerville, Massachusetts. It's a city right next to Boston. It's not not technically a suburb, but we're part of the larger Boston media landscape. Occasionally, they talk about Somerville politics, but very rarely. In High Point, do you have local papers, local TV stations? Have you been able to access that? Or is it, as many towns are and cities in this country, kind of a news desert? And people have to rely on Facebook groups? Just word on the street?
Gene Kininmonth 18:05
Yeah, so we have one local newspaper, the High Point Enterprise, and they will not publish any letters to the editor, or op ed pieces from candidates. And so they don't really cover politics to any super great extent, which surprises me, because if I think if I was running a newspaper, I'd be all over the politics, people love to get into politics, and hear what's going on from a political stance in their city. But that don't do any of that. It's just a good newspaper, if you want to get out and just read the news, so you get it for that.
So I've used I've used the newspaper to place a couple of full page ads, which cost a lot less than I expected. And, and that's, that's been that's been helpful. But you know, I've got to reach 5000 people out of about 117,000 total population, and the newspaper circulation is about 5000. So I've got a hope that that's the same 5000 people but probably not maybe connecting with 1000, 1500 of those people through the newspaper.
I've done a little bit of posting on NextDoor, which seems to be very active in in really just local issues that affects people. I don't know that the people who are on there really want to talk politics. But if you've got a local issue that you're taking up, you know, the a lot of people like to share their opinion on that or hear other opinions on particular issues. You know, whether it's a new development going on, in a particular area, something like that.
Sometimes a little bit of Facebook and then I've done a mailer, which, you know, when I look at what the other candidates have sent out, mine’s a little different.
The other candidates have sent out the really nice glossy cards with their photo and a lot of red, white and blue. As you've seen on my yard sign, I use yellow just to be a little bit different. I think I am the outsider. But then I also outlined why I'm running for Mayor of High Point in a two page letter. So a little bit different.
If I do well, in this election, people will be really, really interested to sort of look back at what I've done. If it works, it may not work. We'll find out on the primary on October 10.
I went into a more text approach, because I think that unaffiliated voters, they do think about the issues a little bit more versus someone who just identify as Republican or identify as Democrat and will just vote that way. And so I think I have to really make the argument for why they should elect me mayor or vote for me in a more intelligent way than just here's my photo and I'm a Republican or Democrat. So that's that's been pretty much the extent of my campaigning for the last six weeks.
Chris Oates 21:23
How long is the race?
Gene Kininmonth 21:31
Yeah, so July 26, I believe was the date I declared. And, you know, it's really easy to become a candidate for mayor. You go into the election office, you pay your $96 fee, and you're on the ballot. They look at your driver's license and check your background really quick, and you're on the ballot, it's as simple as that.
But then once you do that, you really suddenly find out there's a lot of paperwork and a lot of learning from a campaign finance standpoint, that, that you just don't realize what you're getting into before you file. In North Carolina, I think that all of the campaign finance work that you have to really learn and get around and do. It's it's a real challenge for a lot of people who just want to run for local council in their ward. And I think there should be a much simpler way of doing it. Because it's a lot of work to figure out all the forms, you've got to complete and send into the state by very, very strict dates or else we start getting fined.
Fortunately, I was able to do all that and get it all done. But it took probably a good week of my campaign time to do that. Just to make sure I got it all right. And that was quite stressful as well, which I think, you know, it's quite a burden to put on new candidates, especially someone unaffiliated, who doesn't have party support to really go to for questions and things like that. And I think there should be more unaffiliated candidates out there.
So that was the first week, and then it's just been door knocking, preparing campaign letters, preparing ads, some some social media posts along the way, going into some candidate forums. The city seems to be very active with different groups, who really want to get the word out, and the message out about their groups, and they hold forums for candidates for mayor and also city council to come and speak at those. And those have been really good as well and a good learning experience to sort of learn about other interests in the town.
Chris Oates 23:39
Speaking of learning, what are some of the things you wish you had known before you got started? If you go back in time, maybe not even just to when you declared your candidacy but when you first got interested in thinking about it, what is something that you wish someone could have come and told you
Gene Kininmonth 23:55
I've learned bunch of things the hard way, but regardless of it all, if knowing all of those things, I'd still put my my name in the on the ballot and do it anyway. The campaign finances the big a big one. Especially if you're going to be your own treasurer, because it's a very short campaign season and to ask someone else who has no experience in being a treasurer to go and do all the treasurer training to make sure all the forms that correct - Yeah, that's that's a lot to ask of somebody. So I just took it on myself.
I would advise anybody getting into it, don't wait until the last minute like I did. If you start a month earlier, that's that's more than fine.
The other thing is if you're coming in unaffiliated like myself, fundraising is always going to be a challenge because people are like, you know, What chance does a third party candidate have. To get to the primary, I don't think it really takes that much money to be successful if you've got a good platform.
So for myself, I've raised and spent about $11,000, on my campaign, the, the other two candidates, somewhere around the $50 to $60,000 range. They started, you know, 18 months ago. On a monthly fundraising level, I’m probably pretty close to them, but started at zero. It's not hard to get that first 10 or 11,000. Now, if I'm one of the two candidates that make it to the primary, then I think raising another 30 to 50,000, to get through to the next election would be very, very doable, because a lot of people will come on board, wanting to be a part of the campaign at that point.
Chris Oates 25:53
I really appreciate you giving that year in the last couple of weeks of the campaign taking the time to talk to us, because I think it's a fascinating look at not only how mayoral elections happen, but also how you navigate nonpartisan but with party support elections and the unique burdens on unaffiliated candidates.
What do you have planned for election day? Do you already have it mapped out?
Gene Kininmonth 26:23
Well, you know, I have a big international event I'm holding hosting here in High Point on the Sunday before Election Day, which is Tuesday. So I'm probably just going to be in recovery mode.
On election day, I'll go down to one of the one of the voting locations and, you know, just sit back and get those last few votes from someone. We have an interesting election process here in High Point, from the standpoint that the city is actually part of four different counties. And Guilford County is the main County where most of the voters live. But then we also have a couple of other counties that are part of the city, Forsyth County and Davidson County.
Davidson doesn't actually release its results until the next day, after after everybody else has released theirs. And we've had candidate we've had cases where a candidate has gone to bed at night thinking they were voted Mayor woken up the next morning and learned they've lost by 17 votes, because they haven't been counting votes came in.
So I'm going to be pretty, pretty chill on on election day. And so my solution as mayor, if you've got 20 seconds, is homeownership. And homeownership is really, really low in the African American community. Right now. It's, it's close to about 36%. And it was significantly higher 50 years ago.
And I do think if we create a $100 million dollar loan pool in the city, to give out, no money down low interest loans, subsidized through the city, to people who really can't buy homes right now, even though they pay monthly rent that would cover the mortgage, but they can't get into these homes. So if we can create a loan pool and get increased homeownership from 36% and 46%, we're gonna see classrooms improve as well. We're gonna see our crime go down. And and that's really my goal is running from here.
Chris Oates 28:29
Well, thank you so much for coming on best of luck and hope you have a relaxing Election Day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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