Kyle Blomquist wants voters in Michigan's 1st Congressional District to know he isn't from Lansing or Washington — he's from Iron Mountain, and he's watched his neighbors' lives get harder for most of his life.
"I know what it's like to watch as your neighbors' lives get worse and not better. I want, first and foremost, for that to be reversed," he said.
Blomquist, 41, a practicing architect and 11-year member of the Iron Mountain City Council, is one of three Democrats running in the Aug. 4 primary for the sprawling northern Michigan district, along with Callie Barr and Wayne Stiles. The winner of the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary — featuring incumbent Jack Bergman and challengers Matthew DenOtter and Justin Michal — and independent Zebulon Featherly in the Nov. 3 general election.
Born and raised in Iron Mountain, Blomquist returned to his hometown in 2012 and has served roughly five to six years as mayor pro tem on the City Council. He runs a small architecture practice downtown with his wife, Meghan, and the couple has two 8-year-old sons.
"I've watched as the material conditions of my neighbors and the American working class here in northern Michigan have deteriorated most of my life," Blomquist said. "Whether that be our health care or our housing affordability, our wage stagnation, or our ability to retire — I want to be able to supplement that through the force of the federal government."
Health care as ‘a human right’
Blomquist said he doesn't support an expanded Affordable Care Act or a public option — he wants Medicare for All, covering every American "from birth to death, free at the point of service, without any risk of claim denial, care avoidance, or medical debt."
"I know what it's like to have a private health insurance policy that never suits your needs," he said, adding that no one should have to stay in a job they dislike simply to keep coverage.
Housing: Banning private equity, reviving public housing
As an architect, Blomquist said he sees housing policy failures up close.
"I believe that we should be banning private equity corporations from buying up single-family residences and pricing us out of our own communities," he said, adding that short-term rentals need to be reined in, too: "So many of those properties are being captured that would have otherwise gone to young families trying to get a start — instead they're flipped into these short-term rentals, and that's driving up the housing costs.
"Most people don't know that we stopped building public housing almost 30 years ago," he said, "and instead have relied on programs like low-income housing tax credits, which are just another way that the federal government uses taxpayer dollars funneled through a private developer ... hoping that we're going to get scale and affordability on the back end of it."
Gaza, war powers and defense contractor money
Blomquist did not hedge on Israeli conflict in Gaza, calling it "a genocide" and calling for the US to enforce existing law — citing the Leahy Laws — to cut funding to Israel, along with sanctions over the war, West Bank annexations and the campaign in Lebanon.
He criticized how the US enters foreign conflicts without a congressional vote, saying war is often waged "through the actions of a president that goes rogue" while Congress reacts only after the fact. He said he supports continued, limited funding for Ukraine's defense against Russia but pointed to campaign contributions from defense contractors — naming Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Boeing as donors to Bergman — as a driver of "forever conflict."
Housing, farming and food access in a rural district
On agriculture, Blomquist said federal policy traps farmers in a debt cycle by paying them after failed harvests rather than investing in soil health and climate resilience.
"Farmers are constantly on the front lines of not only our food supply, but having to deal with that volatility in terms of your personal finances," he said. "A lot of farmers will find themselves in this constant debt cycle or a bailout cycle."
He said he'd rather see federal dollars target small farmers for soil rehabilitation than continue "paying farmers to plant seeds that they know are never going to come to fruition, or going through this constant cycle of failure just because there is no getting off of that carousel" — though he stopped short of specific proposals for Leelanau County's cherry and fruit growers, who saw a sharply reduced harvest last year.
AI, data centers and a 32-hour workweek
"What I see in data centers, I see kind of rapacious capitalism run amok," Blomquist said, calling for a moratorium on new data center construction until Congress regulates artificial intelligence on intellectual property, personal likeness rights, mass surveillance and weapons systems. "Mass surveillance is now becoming the main use case of AI ... and the use of AI in weapon systems should alarm us all."
He linked the issue to wage stagnation, arguing past productivity gains have not been shared with workers.
"That's how I define the billionaire class," he said, "your siphoned productivity for fewer and fewer people's benefit." He said he supports a 32-hour workweek so that future productivity gains from AI go to workers rather than being captured by employers.
Surveillance, ethics and term limits
Blomquist opposed the bipartisan Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization Bergman voted for, which he said permits warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
"You ask the average citizen, whether they're Republican or Democrat, they don't want their government to be able to surveil them without a warrant," he said. "So why do we have bipartisan support for something like the FISA extensions? ... It's because of money in our politics."
He also backed a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks or holding cryptocurrency.
"We should not have members of Congress effectively insider trading on information," he said. "I've pledged never to hold any of that while I'm in Congress."
Blomquist further called for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, for ranked-choice voting, for ending the Senate filibuster, and for a 12-year cap on congressional service — either two six-year Senate terms or six two-year House terms.
"You cannot have these career politicians that are in there for 30-some-odd years," he said, "consolidating wealth and power and entrenching themselves within our democracy."
Closing pitch
Asked why voters should back him, Blomquist pointed to his roots.
"I'm a son of the district," he said. "I know what it's like to watch as your neighbors' lives get worse and not better ... I don't believe in triangulating to what is vaguely popular. I believe our job as politicians is to set our North Star at justice and equity in improving the lives of your neighbors, and then work to make that popular."
This reporting is made possible by the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative, led by Bridge Michigan and Interlochen Public Radio, and funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan.