Even in a Congress filled with Donald Trump sycophants, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee stands out as among the most brazen. In fact, on the third day of the president’s second term, Ogles proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow Trump to seek a third term.
That kind of sycophancy certainly endeared the GOP congressman to the White House, but it was not enough to salvage his congressional career. MS NOW reported:
Rep. Andy Ogles lost his bid for reelection in the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District on Thursday, dealing a blow to the incumbent despite an early endorsement from President Donald Trump.
Ogles lost the nomination to Charlie Hatcher, a former state agriculture commissioner and dairy farmer who garnered endorsements from prominent establishment Republicans in Tennessee, including outgoing Gov. Bill Lee and former Gov. Bill Haslam.
With just about all of the votes counted, Ogles appears to have lost by roughly 6 points.
As the dust settles on the primary fight, there are three main takeaways that are worth keeping in mind.
The first is that the potency of Trump’s endorsement is quickly evaporating. Despite the president’s over-the-top boasts about voters obeying his demands, especially in GOP primaries, four Republicans who received Trump’s backing have lost primary races in the past two months.
The second is the oddity of the broader trend that has emerged: Historically, House members have rarely faced credible primary rivals. And when they have, incumbents only lost when they were burdened by serious scandals. This year, however, representatives from both parties are dropping like flies.
And third, it’s worth appreciating why the power of incumbency and Trump’s endorsement wasn’t enough to save Ogles’ unfortunate career on Capitol Hill.
In a Congress filled with far too many scandal-plagued members, the Tennessee Republican has long stood out for a variety of ignominious reasons.
Ogles, for example, faced a federal criminal investigation over alleged fraud in his campaign finance reports — an investigation that ended, not on the merits, but because Trump appointees intervened to drop the case against the president’s ally.
It was not, however, the Republican’s only problem. A few years ago, the congressman also faced allegations that he had wildly inflated his résumé, with WTVF in Tennessee uncovering quite a few instances in which Ogles falsely described himself as an economist, falsely boasted about his law enforcement career, and even exaggerated his work at a nonprofit organization.
When WTVF later returned to the subject, it uncovered additional details that made matters a bit worse: Ogles also failed to tell the truth about his academic background — including what his degree is in — and he falsely claimed to be a graduate of Vanderbilt’s business school.
Soon after, The Washington Post made matters worse for Ogles, noting that the Republican “exaggerated or invented” his service on various boards and claimed to have run a consulting firm that “cannot be found in Tennessee corporate records.”
The same report found that Ogles said his firm represented “Fortune 500 companies,” but there wasn’t any evidence to support this, either.
In case that weren’t quite enough, Ogles used a photo of his stillborn baby to raise money for a project he referred to at the time as “Lincoln’s Place.” The Republican ended up collecting tens of thousands of dollars meant for a children’s burial garden, but by all accounts it was never built. And as WTVF reported, “Ogles has refused to provide evidence of what he did with the money.”
More recently, Ogles generated national headlines after peddling overt and explicit anti-Muslim bigotry, arguing, among other things, that Muslims “don’t belong in American society.”
Trump told local GOP voters to re-elect Ogles anyway. They ignored the advice.
The post Why Trump’s endorsement wasn’t enough for Andy Ogles, who lost his GOP primary appeared first on MS NOW.
From MS Now.

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