A super PAC backed by Chris Larsen has now spent roughly $1 million opposing Andy Ogles and supporting Charlie Hatcher in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District primary, then added another $700,000 in ads to the fight.
That brings the Republican primary spending tied to the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition close to $2 million, a scale that makes the Bill Lee Charlie Hatcher Endorsement search relevant today because the race is no longer just about local candidates. It is about outside money, energy policy and whether a well-funded effort can move a contest in Tennessee.
The group has raised $6.7 million this year, and Larsen has given it $6 million since Feb. 2026. His latest $5 million donation was his second-largest single gift after the $5,444,975 he gave to Future Forward PAC in 2024, money that helped support Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign. He has also donated over $1 million to the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, more than $1 million split between the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and over $300,000 supporting Nancy Pelosi.
Ogles, who has been one of the most outspoken Republicans pressing to reverse energy initiatives passed under Joe Biden, says the spending makes the point for him. “When you have a group spending roughly $2 million in a Republican primary, that tells you how much money they're making off of government subsidies, and they're upset that the government welfare has been taken away from them,” he said. He has argued against clean energy subsidies in Biden’s Infrastructure and Jobs Act and in the Inflation Reduction.
That is the part that turns this into more than a standard primary skirmish. Larsen is a major donor to Democratic-aligned causes, yet his money is being used here to help Hatcher and attack Ogles in a Republican race. The clash reflects how deeply energy policy now cuts across party lines, and how willing big donors are to spend where the votes are most vulnerable.
What happens next is simple enough: more ads can still shift the margins, but the money already in the race has put Ogles on defense and made Hatcher the candidate to watch. If the spending was meant to test whether anti-Ogles money can change the outcome, this primary is the answer.
