A political action committee supporting challenger Bobby Harshbarger’s campaign has made disprovable claims about incumbent State Senator John Lundberg’s (R-Bristol) voting history on the issue of allowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
Bobby Harshbarger is the son of incumbent U.S. Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-1) and is challenging State Senator Lundberg in the Republican primary in Tennessee’s 4th State Senate District that is scheduled to occur on August 1st. Harshbarger is employed as a pharmacist. Lundberg has represented the 4th State Senate District since 2016.
Lundberg has been one of the leading supporters of Governor Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program, a universal school choice bill that did not pass the Tennessee General Assembly in 2024 but is expected to be the governor’s top priority for passage when the General Assembly reconvenes in January 2025. Harshbarger is reportedly opposed to Governor Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program. On the issue of education, his campaign website offers no indication that he supports universal school choice, offering instead this generic statement:
Our schools, children, and parents are facing numerous challenges that need to be addressed urgently. As your representative, I vow to safeguard the family values that our children are taught and ensure that they are not erased. It’s crucial to support education policies that protect our children and families from being imposed with leftist ideologies by the Federal Government. Let’s take a stand to defend and preserve the values that shape our society.
WJHL previously reported that East Tennessee Conservatives PAC, a political action committee, sent text messages accusing Senator Lundberg of voting “to authorize in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.”
A search of Lundberg’s voting history on Vote Smart as well as the Tennessee General Assembly website shows that he did not vote in favor of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
One bill in question was HB675, sponsored by State Representative Mark White (R-Memphis). That bill was defeated in 2015, when Senator Lundberg was still in the Tennessee House. The House failed to adopt the bill by a slim margin and Lundberg voted against allowing in-state tuition for illegals. Among other clauses in the legislation, the legislation allowed for individuals to be “exempt from paying out-of-state tuition at a state institution of higher education” if the individual “attended school in this state for the three (3) years immediately prior to graduation from high school.”
Another bill the Pro-Harshbarger PAC pointed to SB2115, sponsored by State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) in the Senate and State Rep. White in the House during the 2014 session of the Tennessee General Assembly, did not give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.
The Tennessee Star previously reported that these texts resulted in “inappropriate collusion between political campaigns and the East Tennessee Conservatives PAC to send mass text messages that allege Lundberg failed to adequately represent his conservative constituents on key votes.”
Notably, the campaign treasurer for both Diana Harshbarger’s congressional campaign and the Pro-Bobby Harshbarger PAC is Thomas Datwyler.
Datwyler’s firm is owned by Axiom Strategies, headed by Jeff Roe. Roe previously ran Ron DeSantis’ SuperPAC for the presidential primaries and President Donald Trump has famously attacked Jeff Roe several times.
Newsweek previously reported that President Trump and his team view Axiom and Roe as major enemies, with a source saying: “They are enemy No. 1.” Roe’s firm was also accused of illegal coordination between the Ron DeSantis campaign and the Roe-headed SuperPAC, Never Back Down.
Sources tell The Star that the consensus on the Lundberg-Harshbarger race is that it may break financial records for a State Senate race.
“Any time Jeff Roe is involved, you can expect a lot of mud, a lot of lies, and a lot of money thrown around,” one political consultant said.
Early voting in Tennessee starts on July 12th.
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Michael Patrick Leahy is the founder and CEO of the Star News Network, which includes The Tennessee Star. Follow Leahy on X at @michaelpleahy.
