Hilleary, Garrett link themselves to Trump in congressional race.
Image Credit: Johnny Garrett for Congress / Facebook, Van for TN / Facebook
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only. Per The Tennessee Lookout’s Republishing Guidelines, this article has been edited for writing style & length.***
By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
State Rep. Johnny Garrett and former Congressman Van Hilleary are running as Trump-supporting candidates in the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District seat that was redrawn dramatically this year.
Neither has differentiated themselves from the other, Garrett claiming to be a fighter for ultra-conservative causes in the state legislature and Hilleary saying he’s made tough decisions in Congress already.
With the primary election set for Aug. 6, both candidates are filling up the air waves with commercials, though with slightly different fundraising strategies.
Garrett reported $1.7 million in receipts through March, but that includes around $1.2 million of his own money in the form of loans and donations.
Hilleary, in contrast, made no loans to his campaign and brought in $1.18 million by the end of March, mainly by raising money from a suite of prominent Republicans. His largest donors are conservative activists Lee and Julie Beaman, who have contributed $14,000, and members of the Ingram family, who own several companies, including the Nashville Soccer Club, who also made around $14,000 in combined contributions. Other top donors include Nashville developer Jimmy Granbery, $4,000, and Pilot Company founder Jim Haslam II, $1,000.
Hilleary has also received donations from several current and former members of the state legislature, such as former House Speaker Beth Harwell, former Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, former state Rep. Barry Doss, state Sen. Steve Southerland, state Sen. Shane Reeves, state Rep. Tim Rudd and state Rep. Kelly Keisling.
Garrett, who reported nearly $279,000 in expenses so far, is depending on personal money and small donations, many of them brought in through Targeted Victory, LLC, a digital fundraising consultant that he has paid nearly $145,500.
Former CoreCivic executive Damon Hininger gave $3,500 to both campaigns, as did state Rep. Rush Bricken, $1,000. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson gave $3,500 to Garrett.
Tied to Trump
Garrett, an eight-year state lawmaker from Goodlettsville, is calling himself a “Trump Conservative” who would support the president’s “America First” agenda, in part by deporting illegal immigrants and keeping transgender individuals from playing women’s sports.
Listing himself as president of Goodlettsville Little League, Garrett recently used baseball images in a TV ad to spruce up his campaign.
Hilleary, a Hendersonville resident who served four congressional terms and ran for governor in 2002 before working most recently as U.S. Rep. John Rose’s chief of staff, promises to fight for Trump as well. He says on his website the president “needs people in Congress who will back him up – not slow him down, cut deals behind his back, or drift when the pressure is on.”
Neither Garrett nor a Hilleary spokesman responded to messages from the Lookout.
New territory
Both men will be running in a newly drawn 6th District, where they have little experience with constituents.
Hilleary represented the old 4th Congressional District that stretched mainly across southeastern Middle Tennessee. Garrett’s state House District 45 takes in much of Sumner County, including large sections of Hendersonville and Goodlettsville, much of which won’t be in the new 6th Congressional District.
In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gutted a provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act dealing with minority-majority districts, the Tennessee Legislature redrew congressional districts in a special session in May. The move split a minority-majority district in Memphis and combined it with rural West Tennessee counties and suburban Middle Tennessee counties, diluting a longstanding Black voting block.
The redistricting maneuver left a sliver of Goodlettsville in the new 6th District, where Garrett lives, and a portion of Hendersonville, where Hilleary resides. The rest of Sumner County was placed in the 7th District.
The new 6th runs from downtown Nashville, taking in most of northeast Davidson County, to two small parts of Hendersonville in Sumner, Wilson, and much of northern Middle Tennessee to the Cumberland Plateau.
Hilleary has hired Republican strategist Chip Saltsman to advise his campaign. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who took an active role in the redistricting process, is also a client of Saltsman. Garrett has hired Ward Baker, another prominent Republican strategist, who is advising U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign for governor.
For practical purposes, Garrett started campaigning for Congress in early 2025 before he made an announcement last July.
Using his state campaign account, Garrett paid $11,500 to Baker’s consulting firm and spent $172,000 on TV and digital ads in May and June 2025, mainly touting his efforts on illegal immigrants. At the time, he said he was letting constituents know that he fully supported Trump’s immigration policies, saying, “The woke Left’s open border policy has been eliminated and all we needed was a new President.”
State legislators are allowed to use their campaign funds for constituent communications, and Garrett hasn’t broken any campaign finance laws. It is illegal to use state campaign funds for federal political races because the money is raised and reported under different rules.
Still, Garrett continued to dip into his state campaign account this February and March, spending $36,800 to send out mailers to people in his district touting conservative stances. He has about $14,000 left in his state account.
Asked about the mailer expenses during this year’s legislative session, Garrett said he was communicating with people in his district, even though he had announced he wouldn’t be seeking another state House term since he was running for Congress.
Yet thousands of the people who received the mailers this year will be voting in the 7th District race between Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Van Epps and a Democratic candidate, likely either Darden Copeland of Nashville or state Rep. Vincent Dixie of Nashville.
Also vying for the District 6 GOP nomination are Jon Henry of Carthage. Henry ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2020, receiving 1.2% of the vote, and has been endorsed in this election by Gen. Michael Flynn, the retired U.S. Army general who served as national security advisor to President Donald Trump in 2021. Natisha Brooks, who also ran for the Republican Senate nomination in 2020 and for mayor of Nashville in 2023, rounds out the field.
