Sam Doctor entered the 2018 race against then-incumbent state Rep. Brian Ellis chiefly because he was frustrated that no one else would.

“No one had run against him for 10 years,” Doctor said.

Now, just five months after losing that election, Doctor is again vying for the District 11 seat. And this time, he's running with major party credentials but without the former impetus of going up against an incumbent.

Doctor, 28, of Butler Township is the Democrat-nominated candidate in the special election to fill the state House of Representatives seat formerly occupied by Ellis. He ran as an independent last year, earning 4,939 votes to Ellis' 16,079 votes.

Doctor said his platform is the same today as it was when he ran as an independent.

“I'm not in this race to carry water for the Democratic party,” Doctor said.

He grew up in Oakland Township and graduated from Butler High School in 2009. He attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania for two years but never graduated. Dropping out was a low point for him, he said.

“Had I waited a couple years and gone into the working world and done that for a while before I went to college, I think things would've turned out a bit differently,” Doctor said. “I just hadn't grown up enough yet to really deal with all that on my own.”

Doctor started finding his path after leaving college. He worked industrial jobs, including sorting mail for the United States Postal Service, before joining AK Steel in 2013. He works there today as a crane operator.

Doctor cites his daughter's birth as a critical push toward running for office. She was born with health issues in 2016. Doctor said his family spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms — with nothing to do but watch cable news — leading up to that year's general election.

He said the combination of health care and politics was difficult to withstand.

“Our raison d'être is sort of encapsulated in that experience,” Doctor said. “Being separated from our community and seeing it so divided. Like everyone had gone crazy.”

His wife, Devin, said her husband's interest in politics actually began before that.

“He's talked about running since like college,” Devin said. “He's always talked about wanting to do something.”

The couple have been together since their junior year of high school. Devin said one attribute of her husband ought to qualify him outright.

“He's incapable of lying,” she said. “He just can't. So he's a really good partner, and would be an insanely interesting political figure.”

Doctor describes his platform as anti-corruption. He explained his three-pronged approach to curbing corruption in the state House: implement a gift ban for legislators, require documentation of receipts for purchases made by legislators, and form an independent organization that handles regular redistricting free from the influence of state politicians.

Those are precisely the trio of policy changes he proposed on the campaign trail last fall.

Doctor calls himself a gun fan and hunter, pointing out that he shot for Butler's rifle team in high school.

“Abortion is something that does and should have limitations,” Doctor said, very clear-cut about his stance on abortion. “That's something I feel strongly about. However, making abortion illegal is not necessarily going to make it less common.”

Doctor said abortion rates decrease “every time women in this country enjoy more economic freedom and more economic independence and less stigma for being independent.”

Doctor recalls trying to arrange a debate with Ellis last year. He said the incumbent initially responded, but talks fizzled out.

“I don't think he ever actually intended to be a part of a debate,” Doctor said.

Overall, Doctor pegs his political aspirations on his credentials as a regular worker. His UAW Local 3303 union rep at AK Steel, 43-year-old Mark Patinski, was blunt about his support for Doctor. He thinks Doctor's independent streak runs true over his party.

“He's not a career politician, obviously. He works in a steel mill with me,” Patinski said. “You can talk to Sammy, no matter what your point of view is,” Patinski said. “And he listens.”