NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The race to take over long-term Democrat Jim Cooper’s seat in Congress is nearing its end. Former Republican Maury County mayor Andy Ogles beat Democrat-sitting state Sen. Heidi Campbell for the newly drawn seat.
The new District 5 takes shape with six counties: south Davidson, east Williamson, west Wilson, pieces of Lewis, parts of Maury and a slice of Marshall County.
Ogles has been relatively silent this election cycle, hosting only one huge campaign event in Franklin featuring Sen. Ted Cruz and sportscaster Clay Travis. His primary race was fraught with tension, as he headed off former Speaker of the House Beth Harwell and military standout Kurt Winstead.
On this Republican side of the race, more than a dozen candidates threw their names into the ring for the Congressional seat, which sitting Congressman Cooper declared was too gerrymandered for him to participate. Redistricting has thrown some election commissions into a flummox. When it comes to this race, Davidson County had at least 400 voters receive the wrong ballot, which caused those affected to pick up provisional ballots. Those will only be used in the account of a close Congressional or statehouse race.
Even so, by all accounts, it appears this race is Ogles to lose. Ogles aligns himself closely with former President Donald Trump. And if this new district had existed in 2020, it would have voted for Trump by 11 percentage points. Trump endorsed Ogles after originally endorsing a different candidate, who was kicked off the ballot. During his victory speech in the Primary, Ogles called for President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Secretary of Homeland Security to all be impeached.
"When you look across the country the top five issues are the economy, inflation, fentanyl, crime and immigration," Ogles said to NewsChannel 5 before the polls closed. "That’s an American issue regardless of your party. We are confident in the (polling) numbers we are seeing. We will take our time. We won’t jump the gun. What happens tonight matters. It’s time for Nancy Pelosi to get fired and take our country back."
Campbell said her campaign has been reaching out to voters here in Columbia and elsewhere in the new district to make their case. But she said one of her keys to victory is to maximize her lead in Nashville. She said she’ll have a shot at winning this if she gets at least 42 percent of the vote in Nashville.
Campbell has outraised her opponent, bringing in nearly double the money Ogles has from individual contributions — roughly $1 million for Campbell to Ogles roughly $500,000. Ogles has funded his own campaign to the tune of $320,000.
