SEDALIA, Mo. – As elections and campaigns begin to get underway, the Democratic Party will look to put forward candidates with fresh faces in districts outside of St. Louis and Kansas City to retake ground that has gone solidly red in the past few elections.
Kyle Garner is one of those fresh faces, and he’s everything the Democrats want in a candidate.
“Kyle is pretty much what I would consider the perfect candidate,” Mike Watts, a Democratic operative said. “He’s young, he’s energetic and he represents all of the values that the Democrats hold. He’s the total package. Even the Democrats that have been involved for decades here in Missouri have come up to me after Kyle speaks and have said Kyle is the best individual that we can put forward in this election.”
Garner announced his candidacy for the 52nd District to challenge freshman Republican representative Nathan Beard who won the district unopposed in 2014.
The district encompasses Sedalia, Knob Noster and Whiteman Air Force Base, and Garner is convinced people in his district could embrace Democratic policies, especially the Party’s opposition to right-to-work legislation and the expansion of Medicaid, if Democrats did the groundwork and talked to people about how they could benefit from those laws.
“Sedalia is a growing city,” he said. “Twenty-four thousand people and growing, good manufacturing center… As a Democrat, the fight we have is getting our policies out and known, get out and talk to people, explaining why these policies are going to be good for the community and help our citizens here.”
Watts believes this strategy of focusing on more rural areas is more than possible.
“One of the things we have seen this election cycle in particular has been that other state level Democrats are getting involved,” he said. “They want to ensure it’s not just the big cities… We’re starting to see a shift back to Democrats getting elected in rural areas, people are starting to realize that they agree more with Democratic politics at this point in time.”
Garner also believes his lower middle-class background, which he says marks a strong contrast between himself and his opponent, will help him in the election.
“One of the biggest things we need in the legislature is people who understand what regular people do,” Garner said. He touted his own life experience, working minimum wage as a landscaper, managing a warehouse, volunteering as a firefighter before working his way up to study law at the University of Missouri and doing legal research in the Attorney General’s office.
He and his wife, Maggie, moved to Sedalia in 2014 after she was transferred to Whiteman. She is a captain in the Air Force.
Beard, he contends, lacks that same experience.
“He’s never been a working-class person struggling to get by in America,” Garner said. “I think getting people into office that have that life experience, people that understand those struggles, is very important for the state.”
Most importantly, Garner says he is running not to bolster his own profile, but because he knows the importance of state politics. He aims to make it a smoother process that truly benefits everyone in the state.
“The biggest downfall of government is when you see the headbutting of politicians where it’s fighting for the sake of fighting instead of working toward the good of the people,” Garner said. “The goal of politicians is to help the people… of the state and not just fight with the other side, and do the people’s work.”
