Former House Speaker Beth Harwell to run
Beth Harwell, a former Tennessee Speaker of the House, will vie for a U.S. House seat in the new 5th Congressional District.
Harwell announced her candidacy Thursday morning, following weeks of speculation about whether she would join the increasingly crowded GOP primary field.
“As speaker, we rebuilt the Tennessee economy by eliminating taxes, promoting school choice and balancing our budget. Before that, I taught American history — real American history,” Harwell said in a statement. “Now I’m running for Congress to fix America by bringing Tennessee common sense to Washington — they could learn a thing or two from the way we do things. It’s time to rein in our federal government, stop the fiscal insanity and return power to the states.”
Harwell’s announcement called her the “only proven conservative leader and reformer in this race.”
An aggressive redistricting effort from the Tennessee General Assembly’s Republican supermajority led to the newlook 5th, which formerly encompassed all of Davidson and Dickson counties, as well as most of Cheatham County.
The new plan split Nashville three ways. The new 5th contains parts of Davidson, Williamson and Wilson counties, along with rural Lewis, Maury and Marshall counties. U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, announced he would not run for re-election following the split.
Harwell, a longtime Nashville resident, joins two Tennessee newcomers in the Republican primary, including former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, a Fox News personality who received an early, unexpected endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
Legislation is moving through the General Assembly that would place length-of-residency requirements on Tennessee congressional candidates, although questions remain about whether it is constitutional to do so.
Harwell was a political science professor at Belmont University when she launched her first bid for political office in 1986, which failed. Two years later, she won election. She served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1989 to 2019 in a district encompassing parts of southwest Davidson County.
She ascended to speaker in 2011, the only woman to hold the role in Tennessee history. Harwell gave up the gavel after an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2018.