Andy Ogles Wins Republican Nomination in New Tennessee District

Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles has been declared the projected winner for the Republican nomination in Tennessee’s redrawn 5th Congressional District.

The new district represented part of the Nashville area and attracted a wide variety of Republican candidates after the new congressional map split Davidson county into three separate districts “likely shifting the state’s delegation from seven Republicans and two Democrats to eight Republicans and one Democrat,” according to CNN.

Ogles started with a commanding lead over his Republican opponents, which included former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell.

“By 10:50 p.m. Thursday, Ogles had 19,879 votes, 38 percent to 12,913 for Harwell, 25 percent, 11,252 for retired Brig. Gen. and Williamson County attorney Kurt Winstead, 21.7 percent, 3,645 for Jeff Beierlein, 7 percent, and 1,605 for Natisha Brooks, 3.1 percent,” reported Tennessee Lookout.

“In Nashville, which hadn’t reported all of its votes to the state at that point, Harwell carried 5,255 votes with all precincts reporting, to 3,274 for Winstead and 2,819 for Ogles,” the report added.

 

Ogles has fostered a fairly conservative platform in line with former President Donald Trump on issues like immigration and abortion.

“Illegal immigration strains our country’s financial wellbeing, threatens national security, and erodes the rule of law,” his website states. “First and foremost, we must secure our physical border. A borderless nation cannot establish itself as a nation. We need enforcement measures that ensure visitors leave our country when they’re supposed to, we need to provide law enforcement with the necessary tools to enforce current immigration laws, and we need common-sense reform that will attract and keep highly-skilled entrepreneurs so that immigrants can continue to thrive in the land of opportunity.”

Ogles also said he believes life begins at conception and he will “commit to protecting the rights of the unborn from the point of conception, block taxpayer funding of abortions everywhere, and defund Planned Parenthood.”

This past April, controversy erupted when the Tennessee arm of the Republican National Committee (RNC) reinterpreted its bylaws to block the Trump-endorsed Morgan Ortagus from being on the ballot alongside conservative favorite Robby Starbuck.