Updated at 6:30 p.m.

Joey Gibson wants to go to Washington.

The leader of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer announced his plans to run for the U.S. Senate during an event Sunday night in Vancouver, his hometown.

The move makes Gibson, 34, the first declared Republican candidate looking to unseat Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, a popular three-term incumbent with a whopping war chest.

"It's going to take a miracle to happen for me to win," Gibson told roughly 100 supporters at the historic Red Cross Building at Fort Vancouver, a national park site near downtown . "But miracles happen in America every day."

The crowd gave several standing ovations and erupted into chants of "U-S-A" as the newly-minted candidate railed against a "rigged and broken" political system and raised the promise of a conservative revolution in the Pacific Northwest.

A former high school football coach who now flips houses for a living, Gibson earned a growing profile in the past year for his willingness to lead right-leaning marches and rallies in liberal West Coast enclaves.

His demonstrations have been criticized for attracting white nationalists and others who promote racist or bigoted views, though Gibson has publicly denounced such individuals and their beliefs.

Gibson's appearances in Portland, billed as "free speech" events, have at times drawn hundreds of counter-protesters to downtown. They have triggered violent clashes between his supporters, many of them die-hard Donald Trump fans, and antifascist activists, or antifa.

On his campaign website, Gibson has swapped his signature black hoodie and backward baseball cap for a blazer and button-down shirt.

In an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, he said he wants his libertarian- and populist-tinged Senate bid to target big business and career politicians, and will support term limits for elected officials and advocate for eliminating tax loopholes for corporations.

Gibson took aim at Monsanto, the agricultural behemoth for its poor environmental record and pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer for driving up health care costs.

When it comes to immigration, Gibson, a devout Christian, said he supports a path to legal status for undocumented workers who have no criminal record. He is also a proponent of gay marriage and marijuana decriminalization, he said.

Should Gibson clinch the Republican nomination, he would still have an uphill battle against Cantwell. The Democratic incumbent has $4 million in the bank, campaign finance figures show. In 2012, she coasted to re-election with more than 60 percent of the vote.

"This is an underdog story," said Gibson, adding he plans to run a grassroots campaign throughout the state and raise money from small donors. "This is David versus Goliath, and I'm going to embrace that."

Running for elected office in Washington also means Portlanders can expect to see a lot less of him in their city in the coming months.

"I don't really see the benefit," he said. "Antifa is nothing more than a distraction to me at this point. There's no need to focus on them now."

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh