Logan Trainer
Now when he knocks on doors, Logan Trainer carries a message. Not packages.
Visiting Logan Country constituents at their homes is a key part of Trainer’s, a candidate for Oklahoma House Seat 31, campaign.
From 2018 to 2021, Trainer lived in Seattle and worked for UPS. The experience of frequenting neighborhoods helps him in Logan County when he greets people at their doorstep.
“You start memorizing stuff,” Trainer said. “It allows you to be able to get up out of cars, get in cars, get out of cars. Talking with people. It’s almost the same thing. It doesn’t matter, rain, sleet, shine, snow. You do it.”
Trainer, 34, is new to Oklahoma; a fact which he believes makes him a good candidate. Trainer says going door-to-door and meeting the people he hopes to represent has been a pleasure. For him, having conversations over glasses of icecold water or, occasionally, a dessert such as a pie, with people who agree with him is important, and almost cathartic. He had little opportunity for such conversations the past few years.
After growing up in Texas and living in California for a stint after graduating college, Trainer’s time in Seattle was a formative period.
In 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns were initiated in Seattle and large-scale protests after George Floyd’s death became frequent, Trainer, an essential worker, drove through the city every day in his truck.
He became frustrated. While listening to conservative radio and podcasts on his route — and mixing in some of Hank Williams’ ‘A Country Boy Can Survive’ — Trainer became frustrated with representatives and people in his city. He identified with the song’s sentiment.
“At one point in Seattle, what I was seeing was they were wanting to defund the police,” Trainer said. “They had the police cars flipped overnight. They were fighting against the police every night. You see the police in the gear and the shields if you remember that that was happening every single day.”
He resolved to move his wife, Dacia, and their two children to a place with people strongly aligned with their conservative Christian values. Where his inner country boy could flourish.
“I noticed South Dakota was different,” Trainer said. “I noticed Oklahoma was different. I noticed Florida was different. And I noticed Texas was different. And the thing all those have in common was all those governors had an ‘R’ next to their name.”
Using DuckDuckGo, Trainer searched for the most conservatvie states. He narrowed his options to Oklahoma and South Dakota and used the weather app to aid in the final decision.
“I’m from Texas,” Trainer said. “We don’t do cold very well.”
Like Collin Duel and Karmin Grider, his opponents in the race, Trainer is a staunch conservative. He says he’s been told by some that he is too conservative, but says he believes in what he does because he has seen first-hand the opposite of his beliefs in actions and did not like the consequences.
When Trainer moved from Seattle and learned of the opportunity to run, he decided to attempt to be a voice for like-minded people.
“Seattle was really, I think, the crux of all that,” Trainer said. “It was the final nail in the coffin if you will, to where finally something rises up and you just say that’s enough. Can we see more people who love our country and feel the same way, voice themselves?”