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The Case Against Charlie Hatcher

“Mayor Chaz Molder has never been distracted by partisan politics or political games because he’s focused on delivering results. That’s the kind of commonsense leadership Tennessee families deserve in Washington fighting for them. While Charlie Hatcher limps out of a messy primary with no resources and no message, Chaz is building the momentum he needs to win in November,” said DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene. 

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To: Interested Parties
From: Eli Cousin, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: August 7, 2026
Subject: The Case Against Charlie Hatcher

Political insider Charlie Hatcher wants a promotion, but his real record shows he has repeatedly failed to show up for the people of Tennessee. During his time as Agriculture Commissioner, Hatcher managed to screw Tennessee farmers out of millions of dollars by failing to even apply for funding that small family farms relied on. Now Hatcher wants to screw Tennesseans even further by supporting policies that jack up the cost of everything from health care to gas to groceries. When you take a closer look, it’s clear that Tennesseans simply cannot afford Hatcher. 

Chaz Molder is refreshingly different. As Mayor of Columbia and a lifelong Middle Tennessean who teaches Sunday school at the same church where his father taught him, he’s built a reputation for bringing people together. Chaz has passed seven straight balanced budgets without raising property taxes during his time as mayor, and he’s done it while investing in law enforcement, public schools, and small businesses. Now he’s running for Congress to take on a broken and corrupt Washington that’s failing Tennesseans.

While Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District is challenging on paper, Chaz makes this race competitive. Polling shows him within “striking distance” in a general election. Tennessee Republicans were so scared of Chaz – who has significantly outraised Hatcher and won by wide margins in a county Donald Trump carried by double digits – that they gerrymandered the entire state to try to slow his surging campaign. Now, Hatcher is limping out of a nasty primary with no resources and a fractured base. The more Tennesseans learn about Hatcher’s real record, the more receptive they will be to voting for an alternative who will actually fight for them. That candidate is Chaz Molder.

Hatcher Doesn’t Show Up for Tennesseans – And When He Does, He Hurts Them

When Hatcher was appointed to serve on the Rural and Small District Subcommittee of the Tennessee Department of Education, he skipped every single meeting he was supposed to attend – failing to give rural Tennesseans a voice in how the state would allocate $9 billion in education funds. Even worse, as Tennessee Agricultural Commissioner, the Hatcher-led Tennessee Department of Agriculture did not apply for $7.2 million it could have received from the USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) Plus program. That program provided a key source of revenue to small farms – but Hatcher couldn’t even be bothered to request the funds. That tells you just how little he cares about the farmers and working Tennesseans he now seeks a political promotion from. When asked why he failed to apply for the critical funding, Hatcher confessed he wasn’t even aware that his department had missed the deadline. He is a no show who has shown he can’t be trusted to fight for Tennessee families.

Unlike Hatcher, Chaz Molder shows up. He still goes to the same church and sits in the same pew he did when he was a child. And he’s showing up and listening to Tennesseans in every corner of the district, embarking on a 17 county tour to hear from his future constituents. That’s because when Chaz gets to Congress, the only people he’ll work for are the people of Tennessee. As Mayor of Columbia, Chaz made sure the city served people, not the other way around. He balanced the budget for seven consecutive years without raising taxes by a single dime. In Congress, he’ll take that same approach to tackle the culture of corruption in D.C. and fight back against the special interests that rake in record profits while Tennesseans get left behind.

Washington is already full of members of Congress who fail to show up, and when they do show up they lack a moral compass and hurt their constituents. TN-05 can stop Hatcher from doing the same by electing Chaz in November.

Hatcher Supports Higher Prices, Health Care Cuts, and Devastating Damage to Tennessee Farmers

Hatcher would be a rubber-stamp for a cost-spiking, health care slashing agenda in Congress. His policies have had an especially devastating effect on Tennessee farmers, a lifeblood of the Volunteer State’s economy. He has put Tennessee and America last at every turn.

Case in point: Hatcher will be a rubber stamp for the same politicians responsible for the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, which made the largest Medicaid cuts in history. The Hatcher-supported agenda has jacked up the cost of health care premiums and forced Tennesseans to go without health insurance altogether. It threatens rural hospitals, putting several at risk of closure across Tennessee. Why does he support it? Because Hatcher is more concerned about lining billionaires’ pockets instead of lowering costs for hardworking Tennessee families.

Hatcher backs a reckless war of choice in Iran that has resulted in more than a dozen U.S. service member fatalities and unleashed skyrocketing prices at the pump on Tennessee families. Hatcher supports a war that has made Americans pay $150 billion in extra costs while Tennesseans struggle just to get by. That’s America Last.

Hatcher also supports sweeping tariffs that are jacking up costs on everything from cars and trucks to groceries and housing. Reports show the Hatcher-backed tariffs are estimated to cost the average American household $2,500 this year.

Chaz knows costs are out of control and putting a strain on Middle Tennessee families’ budgets. In Congress, he’ll oppose cuts to Medicaid that kick families off their health care, he will stop reckless tariffs jacking up prices, he will oppose forever wars that ship Tennesseans tax-dollars overseas instead of investing at home, and he will stand up to Big Pharma and insurance companies to lower costs.

Hatcher Has A Twisted Past That Includes Glorifying the Killing of His Own Dog

Step aside, Kristi Noem. Charlie Hatcher has entered the chat. 

In his memoir, Hatcher wrote approvingly about how his granddad shot and killed Tip, the family dog, and said it taught him the lesson that “there are penalties for bad choices.” If Hatcher approves of the killing of his own puppy, who is to say what kind of harm he would be willing to inflict on the people of Tennessee in Congress. Tip deserves justice, and Hatcher does not deserve a promotion. 

That’s not the only time Hatcher has engaged in problematic behavior with animals. Hatcher said one of his cows, Jevon, was milked for ten consecutive lactations and “looked good doing it, too.” That is deeply, deeply disturbing. 

The more that Tennesseans learn about Hatcher, the more troubling things get. He is simply not someone who belongs anywhere near the halls of Congress. 

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

National Journal: Exclusive: Internal Poll Gives Dems Hope in TN-05 [National Journal, 6/17/26]

Molder is within striking distance… 

The New York Times: Democrats Eye a Broader Battlefield to Capture Congress in November [The New York Times, 4/19/26]

“There’s a number of people that are running for Congress across the country that are a lot like me, that just think we can do better, think that we need to be a little nicer, think that we need a focus on issues that actually matter,” Mr. Molder said, his voice barely above a whisper in a tented turkey blind during opening weekend for hunting this month […] “We have to focus on the issues that actually matter, the kitchen table issues, and perhaps that focus has been lost,” Mr. Molder said in an interview, after more than an hour of waving and compliment-tossing at the Mule Day parade, a yearly homage to the town’s history of breeding mules.

The New York Times: To Win Back the House, Democrats Take the Fight to Deep-Red Areas [The New York Times, 2/5/26]

Democratic officials are excited about Chaz Molder, a local mayor, who pitched himself in an interview as a pragmatist with deep community ties. “I go to the same church and sit in the same pew I did as a kid,” Mr. Molder said.

The Washington Post: Democrats aim for midterm upsets in districts that Trump safely won [The Washington Post, 4/21/26]

“Traditionally it’s not been a battleground, but we’re changing that in this cycle,” said the challenger, Chaz Molder of Columbia, Tennessee. “In this district the Democratic brand is damaged. My objective is to show that brand can always be repaired.”

The Tennessean: “Chaz Molder named priority candidate by DCCC” [The Tennessean, 2/23/26]

“People want someone who’s focused on issues that actually matter,” Molder told The Tennessean. “Potholes don’t have partisan labels.”

The Tennessean: Former Gov. Phil Bredesen endorses Chaz Molder for Congress in TN-5 [The Tennessean, 7/24/26]

PATH TO VICTORY

Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District has Republican-leaning DNA, but a confluence of factors including the strong candidate quality of Chaz Molder, a national environment that is highly favorable to Democrats, and Black voter backlash in response to racial gerrymandering has put this seat squarely in play. Democrats in Tennessee have already proven an ability to overperform in this environment: State Rep. Aftyn Behn overperformed Kamala Harris by 14 points in a 2025 special election in TN-07, over a quarter of which is now in TN-05. Also notable: In 2018, in the competitive U.S. Senate election, Phil Bredesen finished within a point of Marsha Blackburn in the new TN-05 district lines.

Chaz Molder has what it takes to keep the momentum going. Polling shows him within striking distance in a general election matchup. Chaz has proven himself to be a prolific fundraiser and continues to raise the resources needed to communicate effectively to Tennessee voters, while Hatcher emerges from his messy primary with one-tenth of the resources. There is a clear pathway for Chaz to make up the ground needed to pull ahead.

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