DES MOINES, Iowa —

A former Republican state representative announced Monday that he’s running for Iowa governor. His campaign sets up a potential primary challenge to Republican incumbent Gov. Kim Reynolds who has not announced whether she’ll run for re-election.

Sherman is a pastor in eastern Iowa and served one term in the Iowa House from January 2023 to January 2025.

He said he called Reynolds in November to tell her he planned to run for governor.

“I wanted her to know that I’m doing this primarily because I feel like God’s leading me to,” Sherman said in an interview with KCCI Monday. “It’s not like I have some huge vendetta against her. I don’t. I’ve always gotten along well with her.”

But Sherman said, while serving in the Iowa House, he saw room for improvement.

“I got a pretty good look under the hood, as they say. And, you know, I think we could do a lot better,” he said.

Sherman said he’s running on a platform of lowering property taxes, stopping human trafficking, protecting Iowa landowners from carbon capture pipelines, building a “culture of life” and improving education.