For State Representative
MEET RON KOKINDA
I am an America First Trump Republican who has spent my life fighting for the policies that will restore America as a manufacturing superpower.
I grew up on a dairy and horse farm in upstate New York and received my bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York. In 1971, when President Nixon removed the dollar from the gold-reserve system, I joined the movement founded by Lyndon LaRouche — because I understood then what millions of Americans understand now: that abandoning national economic sovereignty and handing power to the financier elite would lead to exactly the kind of decline we see today. LaRouche warned that such policies would end in fascism. He was right.
From that time on, I have fought for space, energy, science, and economic programs that put production and industry first — not Wall Street speculation.
I am also the owner of a small business. I know what it means to meet a payroll, deal with regulations, and fight to keep a business alive in a state that too often works against you.
My wife, Susan Wagner Kokinda, grew up in Allen Park. Her father and grandfather worked for the Ford Motor Company. Her mother was the executive secretary of the Allen Park Chamber of Commerce for forty years. This community is our family’s home. We’ve watched it struggle under the weight of policies that shipped jobs overseas, drove up energy costs, and left working families behind.
I’m running for State Representative because I believe the decline can be reversed — and because I’ve spent fifty years preparing to do exactly that.
Our Families Have Lost One-Quarter to One-Third of Their Buying Power Since 1990. I’m Running to Reverse That.
Free-trade deals gutted our factories. Green energy mandates drove up costs. Wall Street got richer. Downriver got poorer. It’s time to fight back.
In 1990, a family in Allen Park earned roughly $72,000 a year in today’s dollars. Today, that same family earns about $48,000 in real purchasing power. In Melvindale, the collapse is even steeper — from $50,000 down to $35,000.
This didn’t happen by accident. NAFTA shipped our manufacturing jobs to Mexico. The 2008 financial crisis — caused by Wall Street speculation that went unpunished — knocked our communities down again just as they were struggling to recover. And decades of “green” energy mandates have made electricity less reliable and more expensive, driving away the industrial employers we need.
I am an America First Trump Republican running for State Representative because I’ve spent my life fighting these policies — and because my family has lived the consequences. My wife Susan grew up in Allen Park. Her father and grandfather worked at Ford. Her mother served as executive secretary of the Allen Park Chamber of Commerce for forty years. This district is our home, and we’re not giving up on it.
Every issue on this page — energy, education, housing, taxes, health care, the drug epidemic — flows from one central reality: when you gut a community’s economic foundation, everything else crumbles. Rebuild the foundation, and everything else becomes possible.
THE COLLAPSE OF DOWNRIVER'S ECONOMY
Thirty Years of Decline: How Free Trade and Green Policies Gutted Our Communities
The numbers tell a story that every family Downriver already knows in their bones. Since 1990, median household income and purchasing power in our communities have collapsed, not by a little, but by one-quarter to one-third.
THE TIMELINE
1990 — The Baseline
Allen Park families earned roughly $72,000 (in 1990 dollars). Lincoln Park and Melvindale families earned about $50,000. Michigan’s education system was in the top 10 nationally. Our communities were solid, working-class, and proud.
1994 — NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement opened the floodgates. Manufacturing jobs — the backbone of Downriver — began moving to Mexico and overseas. By 2000, Allen Park family income had dropped to roughly $52,000. Melvindale fell to about $37,500. The decline was swift and devastating.
2008 — The Financial Crisis
Wall Street’s reckless speculation crashed the economy. Any partial recovery our communities had managed was wiped out. The financial institutions responsible were bailed out. Our families were not.
Today
Allen Park: ~$48,000 (down from $72,000 — a loss of roughly one-third)
Melvindale: ~$35,000 (down from $50,000 — a loss of 30%)
Lincoln Park: ~$42,000 (down from $50,000 — a partial recovery, but still well below 1990)
Meanwhile, “green” energy mandates have made Michigan’s electricity less reliable and more expensive — exactly the wrong policy for a state that needs to attract and retain manufacturing.
THE BOTTOM LINE
This is not a natural disaster. This is the result of policy choices — free-trade agreements that sacrificed American workers, green mandates that punished industry, and a financial system that rewards speculation over production. Every issue we face Downriver — failing schools, the drug epidemic, unaffordable housing, crushing taxes — is downstream of this economic collapse.
The solution is reindustrialization. Cheap, abundant energy. A tax base built on production, not paper. Jobs where you can raise a family on a single income. And leaders who will fight for it.
ENERGY - THE ENGINE OF RECOVERY
THE CONNECTION
You cannot run a modern industrial economy on windmills and wishful thinking. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the single most important prerequisite for bringing manufacturing back to Michigan.
THE PROBLEM
The green energy boondoggle has made Michigan’s energy less reliable and more expensive. Every dollar added to energy costs is a dollar taken from families already struggling with collapsing purchasing power — and another reason for employers to locate somewhere else.
THE PLAN
• End the green mandates that are driving up costs and driving away industry.
• Unleash oil, natural gas, clean coal, and protect Line 5.
• Make Michigan a national leader in nuclear energy — the most reliable, scalable, and clean baseload power available.
• Facilitate the commercial rollout of thermonuclear fusion systems — the energy source of the future.
• Respond aggressively to the DOE’s invitation for states to host “Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses” to expand and modernize the full nuclear fuel cycle.
Cheap energy built Downriver. Cheap energy will rebuild it.
EDUCATION - BACK TO BASICS
THE CONNECTION
When a community’s economic foundation collapses, its schools follow. Michigan’s education system has fallen from the top 10 to the bottom 10 in the nation. The number of Michigan children who cannot read by the third grade is shocking. This is what economic decline looks like in a classroom.
THE PROBLEM
Instead of addressing the crisis with proven methods, our schools have been turned into laboratories for ideological experiments — critical race theory, gender education, “green” indoctrination, and DEI bureaucracies that have nothing to do with teaching children to read, write, and think.
THE PLAN
• Implement the “science of reading” and phonics-based instruction — the same approach that has lifted states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana out of the bottom rankings. Not by throwing money at the problem, but by teaching what works.
• Concentrate on reducing absenteeism — kids can’t learn if they’re not in school.
• Replace DEI with merit. End critical race theory, gender ideology, and green indoctrination in our classrooms.
• Restore parents to their proper role in their children’s education. Parents are not “domestic terrorists” — they are the first educators.
• Return to our founding principles. We are the only republic with a constitution that treats individuals as made in the image of the Creator. The purpose of education is to foster that God-given creativity — not to produce compliant ideologues.
THE DRUG EPIDEMIC — A WAR ON WEAKENED COMMUNITIES
THE CONNECTION
When you gut a community’s economy, you create despair. And despair is fertile ground for addiction. The drug epidemic ravaging Downriver is not separate from the economic collapse — it is a direct consequence of it.
THE NUMBERS
According to the CDC, there were over 106,000 deaths due to drug overdoses in 2021 — the highest in American history. Two of our own Downriver communities, Ecorse and Lincoln Park, are among the highest in the state in overdoses per capita. This is a new “Opium War” being waged against our children and neighbors, and we must treat it as such.
THE PLAN
• Secure the border and stop the flow of fentanyl and other deadly drugs into our communities.
• Prosecute the financial institutions that launder drug money — follow the money and shut it down.
• Strong support and adequate funding for law enforcement.
• Fund serious treatment for the victims of this war. If we can send $40 billion to Ukraine, we can fund treatment and recovery for Americans dying in our own neighborhoods.
• Rebuild the economic foundation so that our communities offer hope and opportunity instead of despair.
HOUSING & TAXES - THE SQUEEZE ON WORKING FAMILIES
THE CONNECTION
When incomes collapse but costs keep rising, families get squeezed from both sides. That’s exactly what’s happening Downriver. Young families can’t afford to buy. Seniors can’t afford to stay. Working families are hanging on by a thread.
HOUSING
High interest rates, mass illegal immigration, excessive regulation, and high taxes have all contributed to a severe housing shortage, pricing young homebuyers especially out of the market. The long-term solution is reindustrialization — rising incomes and a growing tax base. But families need relief now.
TAXES
Michigan needs a growing population and a growing tax base that comes from reindustrialization — not a tax burden so onerous that it accelerates the state’s decline. You can’t tax your way to prosperity when your productive base has been hollowed out.
High property tax rates are putting unbearable pressure on seniors and working families trying to hold on to their homes.
THE PLAN
• Immediate property tax relief: 10% reduction per year over the next three years for Michigan homeowners across the board.
• Address the root causes of the housing shortage - cut excessive regulation, secure the border to reduce demand pressure, and fight for lower interest rates.
• Reindustrialize to grow the tax base so that essential services can be funded without crushing the people who pay for them.
HEALTH CARE - THE MATH DOESN’T WORK WITHOUT INDUSTRY
THE CONNECTION
Health care is the clearest example of what happens when a state tries to maintain services while its economic base is shrinking.
THE NUMBERS
Governor Whitmer’s proposed $88.1 billion executive budget for FY2027 allocates approximately $41 billion - roughly 46.5% - to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services alone. Meanwhile, according to the Citizen Research Council of Michigan, total inflation-adjusted state revenue today is about $500 million below FY2001 levels.
Read that again: nearly half the state budget goes to health and human services, and the state is bringing in less real revenue than it did 25 years ago. Insurance company profits have skyrocketed, but health care outcomes have not improved.
This is unsustainable. You cannot solve it with budget tricks. You can only solve it by rebuilding the productive economy that generates the tax revenue to fund the services people need.
THE PLAN
• Hold insurance companies accountable - profits are soaring while care stagnates.
• Reindustrialize Michigan to grow the tax base so that health care and human services can be funded sustainably - not by squeezing a shrinking population.
• Fight for policies at the state level that reduce costs rather than simply shifting them.
DATA CENTERS & AI - GROWTH, BUT NOT
AT OUR EXPENSE
THE CONNECTION
An international lead in AI and data infrastructure is vital for the economy and national security. Michigan should be part of this growth - but not at the expense of the families and ratepayers who are already struggling.
THE PLAN
• Welcome data center development - but require that the companies building them pay the full cost, especially for energy and water. These costs must not be foisted onto ratepayers.
• Protect farmland. There are many brownfield sites across Michigan that should be reclaimed for industrial use rather than paving over pristine agricultural land.
• Ensure that AI and data center growth contributes to Michigan’s reindustrialization rather than becoming another extractive industry that takes more than it gives.
A MISSION FOR THE FUTURE
THE VISION
Combatting the crises of education, economy, and culture demands more than policy fixes - it demands that our nation have a mission and our citizens have a purpose.
We had that spirit when President Kennedy declared that Americans would land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. That “New Frontier” energy transformed the nation - not just NASA, but every industry, every classroom, every community that believed the future was worth building.
We need that spirit again. And Michigan is uniquely positioned to lead.
THE OPPORTUNITY
• Make Michigan a leader in the commercialization of space - through low-earth orbit launches and research in hypersonic capabilities.
• Pursue the DOE’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses initiative - positioning Michigan at the center of the nation’s nuclear future.
• Facilitate the commercial rollout of thermonuclear fusion - the energy breakthrough that will define the 21st century.
This is not science fiction. These are programs that are happening now, and Michigan must be at the table. I will work to bring these efforts to fruition - because a community with a mission is a community with a future.
RIGHT TO LIFE & CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
THE FOUNDATION
The economic fight and the cultural fight are not separate. A nation that treats its most vulnerable - the unborn, the elderly, the disabled - as burdens to be discarded is a nation that has lost its moral foundation. And a nation without a moral foundation will not summon the will to rebuild its economic one.
MY COMMITMENTS
• I will defend the sanctity of life and fight to protect the unborn, as well as the vulnerable and elderly who are thrown aside by those who consider them a burden on society.
• I will defend our constitutional rights - especially those under relentless attack: the right to keep and bear arms, the right to free speech, and freedom of religion.
• I will stand for the founding principle that makes our republic unique: that every individual is made in the image of the Creator, endowed with rights that no government can take away.
"The Republican Party must return to its roots as the party of industry, manufacturing, infrastructure, and workers." — The 2024 Republican Party Platform