American Idol alum Clay Aiken on Monday announced his second bid for Congress as a Democrat.

Aiken announced in a video he would pursue the Democratic nomination for North Carolina's 6th congressional district. Representative David Price, a Democrat first elected to the House in 1986, announced late last year that he was retiring.

“For decades, North Carolina was actually the progressive beacon in the South,” Aiken said in the video. “But then things changed, and the progressives lost power, and we started getting backwards ass policies, like the voter suppression bills and the bigoted bathroom bill.”

Aiken lost his 2014 run for Congress to incumbent Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers after narrowly winning the Democratic nomination.

Aiken, who came out gay in 2008 – five years after his second-place Idol finish – on the cover of People magazine, said in his announcement video that “the loudest voices in North Carolina politics are white nationalists like” Representative Madison Cawthorn, a Republican.

He also took a swipe at North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, a Republican and vocal opponent of LGBTQ rights, calling him a “hateful homophobe” and other Republicans, including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

“[T]hese folks are taking up all the oxygen in the room,” Aiken said. “And I could tell you, I am sick of it.”

“Just think how excited these guys are going to be when we elect the South's first gay congressman,” Aiken said, referring to Cawthorn and Robinson, who are pictured in front of rainbow flags.

“Make 'em proud,” he added with a chuckle.

After coming out, Aiken became an advocate for LGBTQ rights, in particular marriage rights for same-sex couples.