(Radio Iowa) – An eastern Iowa pastor has launched a campaign for Iowa’s Second Congressional District seat, currently held by Republican Ashley Hinson. Clint Twedt-Ball lives in Cedar Rapids, where he co-founded the housing and food service nonprofit “Matthew 25” nearly two decades ago. He says that experience has given him a firsthand understanding of the affordability issues northeastern Iowans face and the tools needed to solve them.

“I built housing, I understand housing, and I know what it takes to make it more affordable,” he says. “And then, I’ve also run a nonprofit grocery store, right? So I understand how grocery prices can get out of control.” Twedt-Ball says he started considering a run for Congress early this year — around the time President Donald Trump returned to office.

“We have a president that has done this tariff chaos and done other things that have driven prices for housing up, and so we need to pull on those levers,” Twedt-Ball says, “reduce tariffs, make exemptions for wood and steel, so that we can make housing as affordable as possible.” Twedt-Ball, who was born in Harlan and is the son of a pastor, is 54. If elected, Twedt-Ball says he’d work to preserve Medicaid and Social Security and find ways to spur economic development in small towns.

He’s the second Democrat to announce this month they’re running in the second congressional district. Sixty-seven-year-old Kathy Dolter, a retired Army nurse and the former dean of nursing at Kirkwood Community College, changed her voter registration from no-party to Democrat earlier this year and filed the paperwork to start raising money for a campaign.