How We Lost Andy Ogles; A Message To Other Red States (Op-Ed By Kat Stansell)

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “SURE THING”.

Image Credit: Congressman Andy Ogles / Facebook

Note from The Tennessee Conservative: Editorial statements in this column are the sole opinion of the author; they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff of this publication.

Submitted by Kat Stansell (Independent Journalist and Earnest Patriot) –

Leftist Billionaires bought the US House of Representatives’ seat of Rep Andy Ogles, TN 5., in a newly redistricted part of the state, meant – we’d thought – to help Republicans.

Two Democrats will now be facing off In the midterms in November, 2026, after we allowed Left wing donors from LA, to chose OUR Republican candidate in TN 5!

RINO/Communist Governor, Bill Lee, gave his last-minute endorsement to the Left’s chosen opponent to Ogles, Charles Hatcher, who is a Democrat and former AG Commissioner, whom Lee called a “friend”.

The “Invest in Tomorrow Coalition” – a “clean energy” super PAC spent roughly $2 million in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District Republican primary targeting a sitting conservative congressman.

Andy was a member of the House Freedom Caucus who worked diligently against the money we spent on the green energy scam. This is how he became a target of the Left.

According to US Political Daily, Andy Ogles “made cutting Biden’s green energy giveaways a signature fight – voting to reverse the clean energy subsidies buried in the Inflation Reduction Act and arguing the national debt, barreling toward $40 trillion, was reason enough to stop subsidizing industries that couldn’t survive without government welfare.”

Put this together with the fact that TN 5 District had been redrawn to stretch northwest toward the Mississippi River and Memphis – ground Ogles had never contested, but where his challenger Charlie Hatcher, a fifth-generation dairy farmer and former state agriculture commissioner, had deep roots. Roots that included, apparently, his friend Bill Lee.

So, California liberals did us in, with the same money source as supported Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris. Harris, received $5,444,975 from the “Future Forward” PAC; this, also arranged by Democrat donor, Chris Larsen, founder and chair of a Cali Crypto tech firm, who led the attack on us, with is “Clean Energy Super PAC”

LET THAT SINK IN.

Andy Ogles had a 95 Liberty Score, and somehow we allowed him to go down to the same people who support Kamala, Jane and Nancy. If your stomach didn’t just turn, you’re not awake…or you’ve given up.

We have lost some of our conservative footing in Tennessee, which was as solid a red state as might be found today.

We have now bled some of that red, and much of it is on us.

We just considered Andy Ogles to be a “sure thing”, if anybody thought about it at all. We did little, if anything, to help Rep. Ogles, from what I can tell. In the 2026 cycle, Ogles only raised $585,000; the published attacks from the left apparently worked. 

When I notified some who consider themselves conservative players in that district, they didn’t even know or seem to care.

Complacency, in this political era can be deadly. Neither our state nor our Republic can afford that, as we face the Communist attacks on our system of government.

Just ask Andy Ogles;  that color blue on the TN road sign suddenly seems garishly bright.