DOVER — Former Wyoming Mayor Hans Reigle said Wednesday he will run for the U.S. House of Representatives next year as a Republican.

Hans Reigle

He held a seat on town council from 2002-04 and then was elected mayor in 2005, a position he held until 2007.

Mr. Reigle joined the Air Force Reserve at age 18 and later became an instructor at Dover Air Force Base. He retired from the Air Force in 2002. He currently serves as assistant director of the aviation program at Delaware State University and as the University Aviation Association Representative on the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee Airman Certification Working Group in Washington, D.C.

“Washington is frozen in endless gridlock while thousands of Delaware families struggle to make ends meet,” Mr. Reigle said in a statement. “The same people keep being sent back to Congress as we sink further into debt, increased taxes and lower standard of living.

“If the Washington culture is ever going to change, we have to aim higher and change the people we send there.”

According to his website, Mr. Reigle supports reducing government regulations on business, cutting federal spending by 2 percent and halting illegal immigration. He has the backing of the local Republican organization. “His career is one of accomplishment in positions of leadership and trust with other people’s property and lives,” Kent County Republican Chairman Hank McCann said in a statement.

Delaware’s lone seat in the House of Representatives is held by John C. Carney Jr., a Democrat elected to his third term in November. He garnered about 59 percent of the vote last year.

Although Rep. Carney has not commented on his future, some observers have speculated he may forgo a run at another term in the House to campaign for governor, an office he ran for in 2008, losing the primary election to Jack Markell.

John Fluharty, executive director of the Delaware Republican Party, said in February he does not expect Rep. Carney to shoot for a fourth term in Washington.

Candidates cannot officially file until early 2016.