WASHINGTON Ironworker Randy Bryce recently got to talking politics with a man he met at his job site.

They were working together on building a two-story parking lot for a Veterans Affairs hospital in Milwaukee, and it sounded like the guy had voted for President Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

Bryce, then-politics coordinator for his union, Iron Workers Local 8 , is a committed progressive Democrat. And the man with whom he was conversing surprised him.

Rather than express enthusiasm for Trump, the fellow threw up his hands in frustration, wondering why there werent more ordinary workers in politics.

He was like, You know what? Im sick of voting for all these people. Why dont we have one of us? You know, one of us should run, Bryce told HuffPost at a Washington fundraiser in July, a Wisconsin accent audible in his vowels.

Bryce, a 52-year-old Army veteran, had good news. I just started laughing. I said, Where do you live? When he heard the answer, he said, Ill have one of my signs up in your front yard.

It was May then. A month later, Bryce announced his 2018 candidacy for Wisconsins 1st Congressional District a seat in the states southeastern corner that House Speaker Paul Ryan , 47, first won in 1998 .

Although it is a long shot, Bryces bid has already attracted national attention. His campaign is an opportunity for Democrats to both regain working-class trust in the Rust Belt and land an unlikely knockout blow against the countrys second-most powerful Republican.