Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), who survived a primary challenge in 2014 by only 38 votes, has another primary challenger in 2016.
On Thursday, 27-year-old conservative activist Grant Starrett, who describes himself as a Christian and constitutional conservative, announced he would challenge DesJarlais for the House seat in Tennessee’s conservative 4th District.
“There are big differences between myself and Congressman Scott DesJarlais,” Starrett said in a statement. “The Congressman’s voting record in Washington simply doesn’t match his rhetoric in the district. … I will not just talk like a conservative, I will vote like a conservative. Republicans in the Fourth District expect that from their Congressman. Our fight begins today.”
{mosads}DesJarlais was highly vulnerable to a Republican challenger going into 2014 after the lurid details of his divorce became public.
According to the divorce papers, DesJarlais, who had fashioned an image for himself as a family-values conservative, encouraged his ex-wife and a former mistress to get abortions. A former physician, he also reportedly had affairs with a handful of patients, co-workers and colleagues.
Starrett’s statement notes that in 2014, the National Right to Life group endorsed every Tennessee Republican up for reelection except DesJarlais.
The details of the divorce became public just before DesJarlais won his second term in the House in 2012. There was enough time between then and the 2014 election cycle for him to ride out the controversy, and he ultimately eked out a victory over a better-funded opponent, state Sen. Jim Tracy, in the Republican primary election.
DesJarlais went on to defeat the Democrat in the general election in the conservative district by more than 20 percentage points.
Last summer, DesJarlais announced he was undergoing treatment to battle cancer in his neck, which he said was treatable.
Starrett worked on Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 while a law student at Vanderbilt University. He has also worked at the American Center for Law and Justice as a member of the Senate Steering Committee under former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).