An iron worker takes on one of Trump’s most loyal followers in Congress

When Max Miller ran for Congress in 2022, the Trump loyalist and former aide was unequivocal: inflation and the economy were “the top issue” for the voters in Ohio he was looking to represent.

Four years after he won that race – with affordability, growth and jobs still in sharp focus – Miller could face a significant challenge for the seat from a union iron worker, as the Democratic party battles to retake the majority in the House of Representatives.

“People are working harder and harder. We’re getting less and less and we’re getting more and more of the burden,” Brian Poindexter told the Guardian. “I’d like to see an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy. We need to build an economy that rewards work, not just wealth.”

Poindexter, a five-term councilman in Brook Park, Ohio, and apprenticeship instructor at Ironworkers Local 17, is the latest candidate from the labor movement to emerge as a potential pillar of the Democrats’ bid for control of the House in November’s midterm elections.

As the party fights to flip Ohio’s 7th congressional district, and take the seat from Miller, Poindexter is building his campaign around workers’ rights ahead of a competitive Democratic primary on 5 May. The seven other candidates include the former Cuyahoga county executive Ed Fitzgerald and former Olmsted Falls mayor Ann Marie Donegan.

The district is one of three in Ohio being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2026. The Cook Partisan Voting Index places the district at +5 in favor of Republicans.

Miller won the seat in 2022 after serving as a political appointee in the first Trump administration, and moving back to Ohio to run for Congress. He was one of the first candidates to receive Trump’s endorsement that year, and claimed his Republican predecessor in the seat, Anthony Gonzalez, had “betrayed” voters by voting to impeach Trump after the 6 January insurrection. Miller, for his part, pushed the baseless claim the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Miller’s grandfather was Samuel H Miller, the former co-chair emeritus of Forest City Realty Trust, a real estate development firm that was acquired in 2018 in a deal worth $6.8bn excluding debt. The congressman’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Poindexter is running as a working-class counter to Miller’s wealthy background, one of several union members who have launched congressional campaigns ahead of the 2026 midterms, including Sam Forstag in Montana, a union leader for US Forest Service workers; Kaela Berg, a flight attendant and union member in Minnesota; and firefighter union leader Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Poindexter grew up in a union household with a stay-at-home mom as one of six children. His father was a machinist represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. His grandfather was a unionized auto worker.

“In high school, I went to practice every day after school, and I started working at 7pm every night until 11pm,” said Poindexter. “And then on the weekends I would work eight hours a day on Saturday and Sunday, so I worked seven days a week in my junior and senior year, all while playing sports and getting decent grades.”

After high school, Poindexter went directly into the workforce, working a variety of different jobs, until he landed an apprenticeship at Iron Workers Local 17 in Cleveland, and during orientation was told about being able to enroll in community college to get an associate’s degree.

“I always wanted to go to college. I just never had the means to,” he said. “Within my first-year apprenticeship, I started taking night classes, one class a semester.”

After graduating from Cuyahoga Community College, he became a union organizer with the ironworkers.

“That’s where my eyes were open to how the laws are stacked against working people,” he said.

Poindexter accused Miller, the incumbent, of not being accessible to constituents in the district. “He’s not really present in the district. He doesn’t really show up to town halls. He doesn’t show up to engage with constituents,” he said. “People have told me during this run that they’ve called his office and they don’t even get a response, or they’ll get a response about something that has absolutely nothing to do with what they asked about.”

He also highlighted Miller’s voting record in Congress on worker issues, such as voting no against the labor law reform bill, the PRO Act. Miller has a 14% lifetime voting score from the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, which ranks where it deems lawmakers to stand on issues like workers’ rights, jobs, pay and benefits.

“Those are things that have have real consequences to working people – not just in our district, but nationwide,” said Poindexter, who also criticized Miller’s priorities in Congress, such as authoring a bill to make gambling losses tax deductible. “It just shows how out of touch he is with what people are going through.”