John McCombs hasn’t spent much of any time around the political punchbowl — he’s been out on the road working on punchlines.

McCombs, a Joliet native and Marine Corps veteran turned Chicago stand-up comedian, has filed to run to represent Illinois’ 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. McCombs has never run for any public office before, but he’s starting big running for a seat held by Rep. Danny Davis for three decades.

He also works as a sexual assault prevention educator for service members.

The drive to run came in the wake of President Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris last November. Democrats at the federal level must do a better job at connecting with people and fighting the president’s agenda, McCombs said.

“I’m a communicator, a fighter, a leader, that’s what I’ve got to lean on,” he said.

The Democrats need house reps who are sharp and capable of communicating their message with all generations and walks of life. Kind of like an experienced touring comedian can, McCombs said.

“This is the mindset of every comedian, you have to walk into a room full of people and you have no idea what happened five minutes before you got there, you have no idea these people’s backgrounds and you have to try and make them laugh,” he said. “You have to try and find that common ground, you have to find the humanity in people.”

“When you do that, you find that we agree on 95% of stuff, we get so caught up on the 5% that we miss the 95%.”

McCombs’ campaign’s core issues include criminal justice reform, universal healthcare via a Medicare for all model and raising the federal minimum wage to $20. These are policies that reflect problems that most Americans struggle with, he said.

McCombs knows that in part because his dentist bill joke gets the same laughs in red states and blue states.

“The joke goes ‘I had a filling in my tooth fall out on tour and I didn’t know what I was going to do, everybody in Europe was like well why don’t you see the public dentist,” he said. “I’m like, ‘what the f%#k is a public dentist?’ They’re like oh it’s a government subsidized dentist that provides services to the public, you don’t have this in the U.S.’ and I said ‘oh, no we just chew on the other side of our mouths until the GoFundMe kicks in.’”

In an effort to get his message out, McCombs has been traveling the 7th District on foot from his Wicker Park home through Chicago’s South and West sides and the district’s suburban communities.

Wherever the campaign goes, he wants to make sure that it stays grounded in actively serving people as a candidate, and that he stays grounded in himself. He held to that goal with his recent launch party which was a comedy show benefiting Housing Forward, bringing in dozens of donations off the housing support agency’s wish list.

“If I have the ability to help people today, then let’s help them today,” he said.