The Deck is Stacked in Andy Ogles Favor as Republicans Choose New Voters for Ogles

The New 5th

by Rod Williams, May 15, 2026-The redrawn newly adopted Tennessee Congressional maps have shifted the 5th Congressional seat to the west of Nashville, running through rural west Tennessee to the Mississippi River and south along the river to the outskirts of Memphis. As reported by The Tennessean, the new 5th Congressional district has only 17% of the same people as the current district. It looks like the district was purposely redrawn to improve Ogles chances for reelection. The new 5th includes none of Davidson County, where Ogles is unpopular and cuts Ogles ' strongest challenger out of the district. The new lines split Maury County and Columbia, putting Ogles in the district and cutting Columbia mayor Chaz Molder out of the district.

This is disappointing and disturbing. Politicians should not get to select their voters. I do not live in the 5th and cannot vote against Ogles even if the district lines had not changed, but would if I could. I had already sent Molder a modest contribution and was prepared to send more.  

Ogles is pathetic. It looks like he stays up late at night reading Trump's Truth Social post, so he can be the first to propose legislation the next morning to enact into law whatever insane weird thought Trump had at 2:30 AM during the night. Luckly none of it makes it into law, but Ogles gets some face time on Fox news and a pat on the head from Trump. Ogles has got to be Trump's number one lapdog, bootlicker, or whatever term you want to use to describe such subservient sycophant behavior. 

The Current 5th

I was excited that it was looking like Ogles could be defeated. I was excited that it looked like Democrats were going to choose a sensible moderate to challenge Ogles as opposed to some progressive woke nut-job, like they did when they chose Aftyn Behn as their candidate for the 7th Congressional District last year. Democrats had a chance to take the 7th but threw it away. 

Some time ago, I reached the conclusion that to stop Trump's authoritarian agenda, Democrats needed to retake the House. I live in the 7th and when there was a special election to fill the vacant seat for this district, I was prepared to vote for a Democrat and then the Democrat nominee turned out to be Aftyn Behn, and I just couldn't do it. I voted for Republican Van Epps. 

It looks like in the race against Ogles, Democrats were not going to make the same mistake they made in nominating Behn in the 7th. Molder looks like the kind of candidate that disaffected Republicans and independents could support. Unfortunately, Republican lawmakers have chosen a new set of voters for Ogles, and it will now be much harder to unseat him. 

Molder has been gaining momentum, and the more I have learned about him, the more I like him.  He has raised more than $1.8 million since he announced his candidacy and more that 85% of it came from Tennesseans. That is a lot of money. Congressman Ogles has only raised about $440,000. It was looking like Molder could actually beat Ogles. 

Molder has announced that he is still running for Congress in the 5th. Good for him. U.S. representatives are not required to live in the districts they represent. I am glad Ogles will have a strong challenger. Unfortunately, it is going to be even more of an uphill battle for Molder. The new district looks a lot safer for a Trumpinista Republican than did the old district. I will keep following this campaign and hope for Trump's popularity to continue to drop and that there is a blue wave big enough to sweep Andy Ogles out of office, but the new maps make it much harder to unseat America's worst congressman. 

Top Stories