With hours to go before Republicans choose a nominee for Congress in Tennessee’s 5th District Thursday, all signs point to the defeat of freshman Rep. Andy Ogles at the hands of Courtney Johnston, a Nashville Metro Council member.
Both are stalwart conservatives and supporters of Donald Trump. The former president, however, did endorse Ogles early and many local observers feel this is what might save him from what seems a likely defeat.
It is not Ogles’ voting record or constituent service that puts him in peril but the very murky situation surrounding the funding of his initial House race two years ago.
According to sensational published reports earlier this year, Ogles had reported spending $320,000 on his 2022 House race but his personal financial disclosures to the House revealed that he did not have either a savings or checking account.
“Andy Ogles lied and was caught,” opponent Johnston told Newsmax, “Normal folks get in big trouble for lying to the feds about money, but Andy is a career politician who thinks he deserves a free pass and two more years of a taxpayer salary. If Andy Ogles is willing to lie about his own money, what won’t he lie about?”
The Campaign Legal Center has compared the incident to what happened with former Rep. George Santos, R.-N.Y., and his tangled finances that were pivotal to his downfall.
While the CLC states that it is possible Ogles has an interest account, the group concluded that it would be highly unlikely for $320,000 to be in there to loan for a campaign.
So far, Johnston has more than $700,000, dwarfing what Ogles has collected.
One strong sign of Johnston’s front-runner status is her endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police — a major development because the FOP does not usually endorse someone running against an incumbent.
Under Tennessee election law, the top vote-getter in a primary becomes the nominee regardless of vote total.
(Mary Barnes, a rising senior at Southern Methodist University and summer intern at Newsmax’s Washington D.C. bureau, contributed to this article).
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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