Update — Feb. 29, 3:30 p.m.: U.S. Rep. Mark Green announced on Thursday that he will not retire and instead seek another term in Congress.
“While my strong desire was to leave Congress at the end of this year, since my announcement, I have received countless calls from constituents, colleagues, and President Trump urging me to reconsider,” Green said in a statement released by his campaign. “I was reminded of the words of General MacArthur on a statue at West Point: ‘Duty, honor, country.’ I realized, once again: I had a duty to my country to fulfill. I will be running for re-election so I can be here on Day 1 next year to help President Trump end this border crisis once and for all.”
Original story: No candidate has emerged as the obvious successor to 7th District U.S. Rep. Mark Green, the Clarksville Republican whose surprise announcement earlier this month that he would not seek another term in Washington, D.C., sent political operatives and potential replacements scrambling.
So far, former state Rep. Brandon Ogles, a Republican who represented part of Williamson County in the legislature for two terms, is the most prominent of the declared GOP candidates. Ogles, whose cousin Andy Ogles represents the neighboring 5th District, said on Facebook that he is “running to challenge complacency and address the chaos — unchecked immigration flooding our communities, rampant inflation wrecking our economy and the surge in crime threatening our neighborhoods.”
Clarksville GOP state Sen. Bill Powers was tabbed as a natural candidate in the district, which includes Clarksville, part of Williamson County and Nashville and large swaths of rural Tennessee to the west of Nashville. But he said last week that he will not run for Congress.
Former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was running for the Democratic nomination long before Green announced his retirement. The district, redrawn ahead of the 2022 election, favors Republicans, and Green beat Nashville Democrat Odessa Kelly by nearly 22 percentage points in 2022. To date, Barry remains the only Democratic candidate in the field. Barry said in a release that she raised more than $100,000 in a fundraiser at her home on Thursday. Supporters included Mayor Freddie O’Connell, Nashville councilmembers and Democratic state lawmakers, former U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper and actress Connie Britton, according to the campaign.
Candidates have until early April to qualify for the primary, and several lesser-known figures are already working on it.
In addition to Barry, Green and Ogles, those who have picked up qualifying petitions from the state include Republicans Jeff Beierlein, Joseph Leurs, Jacob Reed, John Smith, Caleb Stack and Tres Wittum.
Wittum, a former state Senate staffer and political commentator, ran in the 5th District’s 2022 GOP primary won by Andy Ogles, garnering just 398 votes. Beierlein ran in the same 5th District primary, finishing in fourth place with nearly 7 percent of the vote. Both live in Nashville.
Little is known about the others. Stack, as of Thursday, was the only candidate to have filed his signatures with the state. He lives in Pleasant View. Smith lives in Nashville, Reed lives in Franklin and Leurs lives in Adams.
Stack, Ogles and Stan Marlar have filed with the Federal Election Commission. Marlar declined to provide biographical information when reached by the Banner, saying that he has not yet officially announced a campaign and is still interviewing potential campaign managers.
Still more candidates are bound to enter the race. One possible entrant is Matthew Van Epps, an Army veteran and former aide to Gov. Bill Lee now working for Main Street Health, according to a source. Omar Hamada, a Brentwood OB/GYN, is also a possible candidate. State Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) was said to be interested if Powers declined to run, but he told WKRN on Sunday that he would prefer that Green reconsider his decision and run again. Conservative figure Robby Starbuck, who Republicans kicked off the 5th District ballot in 2022, has said he is considering a bid, as has Cheatham County activist Mark Moore. Two prominent Republicans who won’t be running: former Nashville mayoral candidate Alice Rolli and state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson.
But overall, the campaign remains remarkably quiet given the relative infrequency at which such vacancies appear.