Peter D’Abrosca, reporter at The Tennessee Star, said Metro Nashville Council Member Courtney Johnston’s reluctance to speak with the press on various issues only leaves voters to assume that she is a left-of-center candidate running in the August 1 GOP primary race for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.
Johnston is running in the August 1 primary against incumbent U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05), who boasts a 100 percent rating on the Heritage Action Scorecard, the nation’s leading conservative scorecard.
Johnston, who allegedly supports former President Donald Trump, previously urged Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to call a special session to pass legislation targeting firearms in a 2022 open letter and cosponsored a resolution to set an official day for Nashville to recognize the Transgender Day of Remembrance last year during her time on the Metro Council.
On Friday, The Star reported that Margaret and George Uribe—donors to far-left State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville)—were scheduled to hold a fundraiser for Johnston, according to a flier promoting the event. This further fuels speculation about the candidate’s candidacy as a Republican.
D’Abrosca contacted both Uribe and Johnston for comment about the fundraiser, which led him to learning that the fundraiser was reportedly canceled.
“I was able to get George Uribe on the phone and ask him, ‘Hey, what’s the deal with this fundraiser?’ He denied that the fundraiser happened, which is interesting, but he was clearly on the ropes and backpedaling. He said, ‘No, we canceled the fundraiser.’ I asked if he was going to have it and he said, ‘I haven’t decided yet, but we’ll give you a call back if we decide to have it,’ which, I’m not going to hold my breath for. So then we got a hold of Courtney Johnston and I asked her, flatly did the fundraiser happen and immediately and very bluntly and very sternly, she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ which of course is a telltale sign that somebody knows exactly what you’re talking about. Then she added, ‘And no, it didn’t happen.’ Then she hung up the phone on me,” D’Abrosca said on Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
D’Abrosca said Johnston’s reluctance to speak with The Star – not solely about the fundraiser but on multiple issues when she launched her congressional campaign – has fueled assumptions among voters that she may be a “Democrat in disguise.”
“We can only assume that she holds these kinds of left-of-center policies,” D’Abrosca said. “I think you could probably describe Courtney Johnson as a moderate at best and at worst, probably a Democrat in disguise, which of course is an issue that plagues the Republican Party and always has. Hopefully we can alleviate some of that there in this election cycle.”
D’Abrosca further questioned Johnston’s strategy of avoiding the press, saying, “I’m not sure what exactly it is that she’s hiding or why she’s not interested in talking to the press.”
“As a political candidate, you would think that any opportunity you could get to speak about your platform would be something you would want to take advantage of,” D’Abrosca added.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
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