Joe Mitchell

Mitchell is a Republican businessman and former Iowa state representative from Clear Lake who, when first sworn in, was the youngest person elected to the Iowa legislature. After leaving the legislature he worked in the second Trump administration, most recently as a regional administrator at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to his campaign website, he is running on fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, support for family farmers, and secure borders.[1][2][3][4]

Mitchell was born in Wayland, Iowa, on April 23, 1997, and graduated from Waco High School in December 2014. He earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Drake University in 2018.[2] He runs a real estate development business based in Clear Lake and founded Run Gen Z, a nonprofit that aims to elect young conservatives to public office.[5][2]

Mitchell won an open seat in 2018 and represented Iowa House District 84 from January 2019 to January 2023; he took the oath at age 21 and was re-elected in 2020.[1][3][2] In the chamber he served as an assistant leader and sat on the Administration and Rules, Commerce, Judiciary, State Government, and Ways and Means committees.[1][2] After redistricting placed him in the same district as another Republican incumbent, he lost the June 7, 2022 Republican primary for District 87 to Jeff Shipley.[1][2]

According to Wikipedia, Mitchell was a resident fellow at Harvard University in 2023 and joined President Trump's 2024 transition team.[2] In 2025 he served as chief of staff of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and then as the Trump-appointed HUD regional administrator for the Great Plains region, which covers Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas.[5][3][2] He announced his campaign for Iowa's 2nd District on September 8, 2025, and defeated state Sen. Charlie McClintock in the June 2, 2026 Republican primary.[5][1]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.