7 Thoughts About Jon Kiper's Interview

The 2nd piece about newly-announced independent gubernatorial candidate Jon Kiper

Yesterday, I wrote the first of two pieces about Jon Kiper, the Newmarket restauranteur and former town councilor who ran for the 2024 Democratic gubernatorial nomination. On Sunday, appeared on WMUR’s CloseUp to announce that he would be running for governor again in 2026 - this time, as an independent.

I went through the recent history of independent candidates for major office in New Hampshire, what role he might play in the coming race for governor, and who his 2024 voters (he got over 11,000 votes) might have looked like. Please check it out, if you haven’t already. Today, we’ll look at the content of his interview on CloseUp with Adam Sexton.

I was asked the other day why I am a Democrat, and I told them that my favorite part of being a Democrat - when the party is running on all cylinders - is that it believes that everybody deserves an opportunity to be their best. I’m not terribly religious, but I am ethnically, nominally Catholic. There’s is much about which I disagree, but I do like that the faith believes in the concept that we help our neighbors when they are in a tough spot - that in many cases, it is through the “grace of God” (or good luck, depending on how you see the world) that we are not in a tough spot, too.

It is wholly possible to have a state and country that is fiercely entrepreneurial and dynamic economically…and also compassionate, family-friendly, and kind. I believe the best of the Democratic Party can reflect these values uniquely well.

I’m a proud Democrat - but I’m also deeply concerned about our party’s inability to perform at the state level, and our national party’s continuing walk into the wilderness. If the Democratic Party lacks the self-awareness, competence, or humility to get its act together, everybody suffers. The GOP is less likely to be held accountable when it overreaches; the most vulnerable are less likely to have effective advocates; and a generation of young Americans will have embedded in them that our party does not welcome or represent them.

Democrats have a responsibility to do better. Part of improving is acknowledging our weaknesses and mistakes - and learning from observing others. And Kiper makes several points in this interview that New Hampshire Democrats should consider:

1. The vast majority of voters - including virtually all non-high engagement Democrats - prioritize economic issues.

“[Voters] are tired of seeing these two groups of people not really representing the issues that we, as just average citizens, have - you know, basically economic issues. That’s where I want to see the focus, and that’s where my focus will be as Governor, is helping people in New Hampshire do better. You know, working-class people and middle class people who are really struggling…”

The split in American politics right now is not ideological; it is prioritizational. I won’t go all into the data now - you can read a recent piece I wrote about it here - but most Americans think the cost of living (including housing), the economy, immigration, crime, and health care are the most important issues of the moment. In New Hampshire, property taxes and quality local public schools go hand-in-hand with all of this, too.

But for high-engagement Democrats, who dominate our state primaries and select our nominees for governor, the priorities are vastly and uniquely different: Abortion, LGBTQ+, climate change, democracy, and Trump. Kiper, who generally agrees with Democrats on all of these issues, projects in this interview that communicating your priorities correctly is the ballgame right now.

2. Democrats cannot be seen as the party of NIMBY.

“I was going around the state, going to these town meetings with Democrats, and at several of the meetings, I’d be giving my pitch about housing. I’d say, ‘We need housing because of inflation, and because of homelessness, because we need more young people in the state to take care of our aging population’. And more than once, people would look at me and be like, ‘Yeah, you know, we don’t want any more housing in New Hampshire. Our kids need housing, but we don’t, and we’re all set’. And these were generally older folks. And at one point I thought to myself, ‘One of us is in the wrong meeting’. You know, either I need to find another party, or the Democrats need to change.”

With housing being by far the number one issue in New Hampshire, there has a battle in the legislature all year about who is doing more to make it easier to build more housing, make it easier to buy your first home, etc. There have been unusual coalitions and cosponsors for some of these efforts, but at the gubernatorial candidate level, it is absolutely paramount that the Democratic nominee be somebody who is genuinely pissed off about the “Bermuda Triangle” of New Hampshire politics: Housing, high property taxes, and the quality of local public schools.

As a Democrat, you can disagree with Kiper’s description of these local Democratic committee meetings, or believe he’d face the same resistance at a local GOP meeting. (I personally think he’d find similar demographics and sentiments about NIMBY vs YIMBY at a GOP town committee meeting.) But as somebody who has been on CloseUp and similar programs many times, and has been both a gubernatorial candidate and an operative, believe me when I say that this was very effective.

3. Democrats are perceived as being anti-men.

“I felt really kind of alienated at many points in the campaign. I mean, you had Jeanne Shaheen getting up there at the New Hampshire Democratic convention and saying, ‘I want to see a female governor!’ You know, I’m sitting here, saying, I’m here with my son, saying, “Do we have a role in this party?” I think the answer is, we don’t.”

As I said up top, there is not enough data to make a strong case for exactly who voted for Kiper in 2024 (outside of being successful in his own backyard). If I had to guess, though, I think it was a combination of people who appreciated his look and vibe of being working class (moustache, casual attire, etc.), plus him being the only male candidate.

The numbers nationally are clear: Democrats have turned off male voters - including non-white men - to an extent that it has effectively crossed out the significant gender gap advantages Democrats have built with women. There’s a mountain of data on this, including that President Trump outright won men between 18-29 overall in 2024, but it should be noted: New Hampshire has a female governor right now. Do most Democrats think that Gov. Ayotte’s gender makes her their preferred choice?

An indirect benefit of a gubernatorial candidate focused on cost of living, economic, property tax, housing, and education quality issues is that these are largely gender-neutral in importance to the swing voters who will determine most elections. I’m not making an argument about what should be; if New Hampshire Democrats are going to win more state-level elections, we need to make arguments based on what is.

4. Dems’ ideas are more popular than either our brand or our candidates.

“A lot of the Democratic policies are very popular, but the people who are presenting them are not. This is what the Democrats cannot seem to get through their heads...People want to see common sense solutions, and they want to see them in practice.”

The most successful national Democrats of my lifetime were also the greatest political athletes our party has put forward, and it is not a coincidence: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Most voters make decisions based on how candidates make them feel, not on some spreadsheet-based comparison.

On most issues in New Hampshire, voters tell us there is majority support for the Democratic position: Opposition to cuts in Medicaid. Support for strong pro-choice laws. Funding local public education. Paid family and medical leave. Legalization of cannabis, and more. In New Hampshire, President Trump struggles to break 40% approval these days, and lost the state three straight times.

But Republicans have won the last five gubernatorial races, the last three by double-digits. Our policies are more popular than either our brand or our candidates. New Hampshire Democrats have significantly undervalued the importance of pure “political athleticism” in who we are recruiting and nominating for state office, including governor.

We are in a political era that will generally value political talent that is able to command and hold voters’ attention at a higher level than at any point in my lifetime. President Trump understands this expertly well; Governor Sununu was, in his own way, pretty good at this, too. If we’re going to win back the governor’s seat anytime soon, Democrats are going to have meaningfully improve in this regard.

5. Kiper may be bringing how we fund schools back into the gubernatorial mix.

“One thing that people don’t want to talk about…politicians in New Hampshire, is school funding, and how that affects property taxes and housing. And I’m gonna say the quiet part out loud: We need a new way to fund our schools to bring property taxes down. That’s it. And whether that’s an income tax, a sales tax, a goods and services tax, a value-added tax…I want to have that discussion…and let’s come to a consensus, where at least 60% of us agree, ‘hey, we need this new revenue stream, so that we can bring our property taxes down, so that elderly people can stay in their homes, so that the working-class people that are just getting killed by these ever-increasing property taxes can live a good life.”

This is going to be its own column sometime soon, so I won’t go deep on this point, but those of us who have been around for a while know that roughly once a decade the issue of how we fund public schools comes back into the gubernatorial mix. In 1992, Arnie Arnesen. In 2002, Mark Fernald. In 2012, Jackie Cilley. In 2020, Andru Volinsky. They all had their own twist on the debate about “The Pledge”, but none of them became governor, and no candidate in my lifetime has been able to make the argument Kiper states above effectively politically.

For Democrats, this may be the most potentially problematic component to Kiper’s candidacy: If he pulls some working-class voters, combined with some chunk of the Democrats who support a broad-based tax as a solution to education funding (generally, the higher-income, higher-educated, more liberal part of the party’s base), that would make the math for a Democrat competing in 2026 very problematic.

I would estimate that roughly 30% of the Democratic Party’s base in New Hampshire would be attracted to at least this part of Kiper’s interview last Sunday. Most of them probably wouldn’t go to Kiper; but some would, and it could put pressure on the eventual Democratic candidate(s) to move towards this position, as well. All I’m saying is…keep an eye on this.

6. Selling a populist agenda works better if the candidate has a populist story to tell.

“Who has money right now? It’s not the middle class, it’s not the working class. It’s the rich, and the corporations that they own.”

“There’s companies in this state making hundreds of millions of dollars, and a lot of those companies are avoiding paying taxes…I pay so many taxes. I pay Rooms & Meals, I pay income tax, business profits tax, and property taxes. And at the end of the day, I have very little to show for it. And I see these guys, these billionaires, with all the money, and that’s where we need to go to get that money.”

One area where Democrats are generally saying the right things relates to the “wealthy vs working class” frame - except that it is generally best articulated by candidates who can talk about it in a first-person manner. Kiper does a nice job in this interview of not just using the populist frame - he does it in a way that reminds voters that he is a small business owner who is not “fat cat”. More importantly, he uses it as a way to challenge the notion that the NHGOP is the party of low taxes. We may not have a general income or sales tax, but a local restauranteur pays a lot of taxes. The Rooms & Meals Tax is an 8.5% sales tax we all pay; the Business Enterprise Tax is a broad-based payroll tax; and we have America’s highest property taxes. In this interview, Kiper shows how combining this personal narrative with a working-class aesthetic could be effective.

7. Ayotte is sneaky-vulnerable because voters see her as a “Republican” more than as her own brand.

“I know that they [Ayotte and Trump] are pretty good friends, the two of them…”

This was a small, subtle line late in the interview. If Governor Ayotte is going to be vulnerable next fall - and I think she well could be - it will be largely because voters see Ayotte as closely associated with the overall Republican brand. Former Govs. Sununu and Lynch consistently polled 10+ points above their parties’ brand in New Hampshire, which insulated them from national waves working against them (Lynch in 2010, and Sununu in 2018). Polls are already showing that Ayotte does not (at least up to now) have such an independent brand. So, finding subtle ways to link Ayotte and Trump is much more likely to work than the often heavy-handed manner Democrats tried to use against Sununu.