Tennessee GOP Boots Trump Endorsed Candidate Out Of Primary

A Trump endorsed House candidate in Tennessee has been booted from the Republican primary because she didn’t meet the residency requirement.

The Tennessean reported that Trump endorsed Morgan Ortagus got the boot:

Ortagus, a former State Department spokesperson who nabbed an early endorsement from former President Donald Trump, called the removal “deeply disappointing.”

“I’m a bonafide Republican by their standards, and frankly, by any metric,” Ortagus said in a statement. “I’m further disappointed that the party insiders at the Tennessee Republican Party do not seem to share my commitment to President Trump’s America First policies. As I have said all along, I believe that voters in Middle Tennessee should pick their representative – not establishment party insiders. Our team is evaluating the options before us.”

Tennessee passed a law in 2019 establishing a three-year residency requirement for candidates, which Ortagus did not meet.

The 2022 election has seen a wave of Trump carpet baggers run in states that they don’t have much if any connection with. The most high profile of these is Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. The residency requirement makes sense because if a candidate wants to represent the people of a state, they should have some familiarity with the residents and the problems of that state/district/municipality.

Even in deep-red Tennessee, where support for Donald Trump was some of the strongest in the nation, not even an endorsement from the failed former one-term president could keep one of his candidates on the ballot.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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