Rob Bertrand came from obscurity to the top of the polls on Kamloops city council, and he hasn’t fully grasped how it happened.

The local dad and tire shop manager ran a low-cost campaign with very few signs and paid advertising, relying mainly on no-frills social media videos and his gut instincts.

“I haven’t been polished. I’ve articulated properly, but… I kind of just followed my gut feeling and my heart throughout this entire process,” he said.

Something in Bertrand’s bare-bones, plain-spoken approach appealed to Kamloops voters. His videos portray an approachable, blue-collar worker, often speaking to the camera outside or in his truck.

On election night, he watched the results with his newborn baby and thought he “might squeak in.” He picked up 10,931 votes, which was more than any other city council candidate on the ballot. He is one of five newcomers on the horseshoe and three who had never run in an election before.

“I’m still trying to understand how it happened the way it happened. Especially when, on the back-end, I didn’t do anything financially for the campaign. It was very minimal approach… and it just kind of blew up,” he said.

He showed up at election forums and debates, but the bulk of his campaigning was done on social media. He suggested it was his frank honesty that must have appealed to the public. It wasn’t an altogether unconventional campaign, unlike the humorous approach by Brady Rogers in Kelowna, but it was his climb from a relative unknown to top vote-getter that was surprising.

Bertrand said he was mainly driven by a desire to shape a better community for his kids, which was part of his messaging throughout the campaign. During the election, he promised to focus on public safety, fiscal responsibility and transparency as a city councillor. Now that more than a third of Kamloops voters picked him, he feels a weight of responsibility.

“I’m excited, I’m exhilarated, I’m terrified, I’m everything,” Bertrand said. “When you have a lot of people who vote on you and rely on you, I feel that responsibility. It’s not something I take lightly.”

The new council is coming into the term with financial pressure from the ongoing portfolio of Build Kamloops projects and an upcoming police station, while exiting a long four years with a dysfunctional mayor. Bertrand said he has spoken with the incoming leaders and they are looking forward to putting that saga behind them.

“Everybody is sort of hitting the reset,” he said. “A lot of people for the last four years have been heavily focused on the drama, and it’s hard to shut that off once it’s on.”