Meet Kate.
Mom. Sustainability scientist. Transformation scholar. Three-term legislator.
Kate Knuth believes in possibility.
I am running for mayor because I see this moment in the City of Minneapolis as both a call to action and an opportunity. And I am deeply committed to doing the hard work of building a better Minneapolis with you.
My commitment to public service and public work is rooted in my family and the community I grew up in. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad running for office and serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives. My dad was quite a guy—raised by a single mom after his own father died young. He was a feminist who worked for Planned Parenthood while in graduate school and an environmentalist who took part in the first Earth Day.
My mom spent her career serving kids as a public school educator and administrator. Between the two of them, you could count on finding someone to serve on the planning commission or church board, lead a scout troop, organize the neighborhood picnic, or simply check in with a teenager who was struggling.
In our family, living a good life meant living a life interwoven with the community. This is a value I continue to hold deeply, and it’s a value my husband and I work to model with our daughter.
Valuing our community—the Bryn Mawr Neighborhood, Minneapolis, Minnesota, the United States, and our home planet—is the foundation of why I am running for mayor of Minneapolis.
I’ve also spent my career trying to make progress on addressing systemic challenges. Much of my professional work centers on using our publicly-accountable institutions—government and public higher education, specifically—to help navigate the climate change era in a way that enables every person to thrive.
Doing this work well requires asking probing questions, centering the perspectives of people historically left out of or harmed by government, and working with both purpose and humility. This is the approach I will take serving as your mayor.
Who is Kate?
Three-term State Representative. Kate was elected by colleagues to serve as an Assistant Majority Leader.
Small business owner. Kate founded and runs Democracy and Climate LLC, which provides strategy, policy, research, writing, and consulting services. She has built this thriving business through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Writer. Kate has published on climate, resilience, transformation, and democracy. Her essay “Becoming a Climate Citizen” is in the L.A. Times bestselling book All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Her essays on transformation and resilience have appeared in Ensia, and she regularly publishes opinion pieces in Twin Cities media.
Neighborhood advocate. Kate serves on the Bryn Mawr Neighborhood Association Board and co-chairs the racial justice committee.
Public servant and civic leader. Kate was appointed by Governor Dayton to serve on the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board and selected by fellow board members to serve as Vice Chair. Kate served as the first Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Minneapolis.
Entrepreneur within big bureaucracies. Kate built, and led for six years, the Boreas Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota. She designed the program to help graduate students become the kinds of change agents they aspired to be
Interdisciplinary scholar. Ph.D in Conservation Science from the University of Minnesota; M.Sc. in Biodiversity Conservation from Oxford University; B.A. in Biology & Philosophy from the University Chicago, Fulbright Fellow in Norway, Humphrey Policy Fellow. Kate’s dissertation addressed the question of how we drive transformational change to make progress on complex challenges like sustainability.
Deeply-rooted Minnesotan with global experience. Kate is a fourth-generation Minnesotan, and she is a Minneapolitan by choice. Kate brings to her work the experience of living in multiple countries – South Africa, Norway, England, and the Czech Republic
Athlete. Kate trains for triathlons in Minneapolis lakes and on Minneapolis trails. She has completed an Olympic-distance triathlon and multiple YWCA Women’s triathlons at Lake Nokomis. She is an avid cross-country skier.
Committed to family. Kate and her husband, Sam, have one daughter, Maud. They are lucky to have grandparents nearby and a large family of choice who are their daughter’s village. Over the last few years, Kate walked alongside her parents as her father dealt with and died from Alzheimer’s disease.
Key Accomplishments
Kate designed, led, and documented the community engagement process that laid the foundation for a Minneapolis resilience strategy - engaging more than 2,000 Minneapolis residents in this work.
In collaboration with the 100% Campaign, Kate researched and wrote a white paper on climate adaptation and resilience in Minnesota, making recommendations for better-coordinated and better-supported state action on climate resilience.
In 18 months and during the pandemic, Kate built a small business. She secured multiple clients and over six figures of revenue while delivering results.
Kate chief-authored and passed the Toxic Free Kids Act, nation-leading comprehensive chemical policy reform. Kate took this bill through 7 legislative committees on the way to final passage. The policy helps make sure the things Minnesota parents buy for their kids are safe and healthy.
As a first-term legislator, Kate passed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008 and engaged in the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord process
Kate turned an idea for the Boreas Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota into a program serving more than 100 students annually.
Kate led advocacy for and secured creation of a clean energy and resilience framework to help guide the major redevelopment at the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant site. This accomplishment required working creatively outside of and across levels of government in pursuit of clear vision.
Honors
40 under 40 in Clean Energy: Midwest Energy News
Willard Munger Award Winner, the highest environmental award given by the Minnesota DFL Party
Invited by the Obama White House to join the Coalition of Legislators to advocate for strong climate policy at a federal level, and visited the White House and Capitol Hill to do so
NGO observer delegate to three UN Climate Conferences - including witnessing the signing of the Paris Agreement.
Served as National President of Venturing Program, representing 250,000 coed youth members of this Scouting program
Fun Facts:
Kate has worn the color orange every day for more than two decades. The color brings her joy, and wearing orange is an easy way to bring a little joy into each day.
Thanks to WedgeLive! Kate is excited to dance post-pandemic and her go-to dance song is Timber by Mr. Worldwide Pitbull and the iconic Ke$ha.
Kate’s favorite animals are ants because ants are essentially social creatures. They cannot live alone and are highly dependent on each other. This interdependence has made ants very successful.
Kate has had some wonderful pets over the years. In college, she had two giant millipedes – Hank and Milton. In 2012, she adopted a stray cat on the 4th of July and named her Martha Washington.
Kate used to rollerblade along the shore of Lake Michigan to her job sequencing moth DNA at the Field Museum in Chicago.