TN-04: DesJarlais gets his first primary challenger

[Miles]

It was already something of a forgone conclusion that DesJsarlais would go down in the Republican primary, but State Sen. Jim Tracy announced that he is taking the plunge in 2014.

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In 2010, Tracy, from Rutherford County, lost a closely-fractured 3-way primary to now-Rep. Diane Black in CD6. This was the main reason that Black pushed for Rutherford County to be removed from CD6 in redistricting.

Tracy was initially expected to run in the primary against DesJarlais in 2010, but he never pulled the trigger.

[Miles]

State Rep. Joe Carr (R), also from Rutherford County, is also entering the race. The more candidates here, the better it is for DesJarlais.

[Miles]

Dang, looks like DesJarlais intends to stick around.

Issa, Lucas and Kline are hosting a fundraiser for him.

[Miles]

Carr is officially in.

If the field gets much bigger than this, its gonna start to look like a clown car (no pun intended) and DesJarlais might actually slip through.

[Miles]

DesJarlais is officially running again.

He already has two strong challengers, and since there are no runoffs in TN, he would theoretically only need 34% to win.

[Miles]

Carr changed races and is now running in the Senate primary against Lamar Alexander.

This is bad news for DesJarlais, as his primary, at least for now, is a two-man race.

[Miles]

Eric Stewart was about as solid a recruit Democrats could get here and he only got 44%.

Stewart would probably have to carry Rutherford County (though he got like 46-47% there in 2012, IIRC) and it would still be very hard for him to win with Obama as President.

[Miles]

The Concerned Women PAC is endorsing Jim Tracy instead of abortion advocate principled conservative Scott DesJarlais.

[Miles]

A local interview with DesJarlais.

[Miles]

Wow, its been a while since we checked up on this race.

Tracy just put out a lengthy list of endorsements. The most prominent names are from the TN legislative R leadership and several statewide officials.

DesJarlais is touting a thumbs-up letter he got from Rand Paul over his 'principled' Nay vote on the budget deal:

[Miles]

Well, if there was any chance of DesJarlais holding on, its basically gone now; he was massively outraised last quarter. He pulled only $18K while Tracy got $150K.

He's also at more than a 5:1 CoH disadvantage.

[Miles]

Tracy is one of a quartet of candidates that GOPAC has endorsed; the PAC is for Republican state legislators running for Congress. Others:

Comstock (VA-10)
Garcia (NH-02)
Rogers (IA-01)