Grant Starrett and Scott DesJarlais are pictured in this composite photo.NASHVILLE - Republican Grant Starrett's campaign announced today the 4th Congressional District hopeful raised $91,699 in the fourth quarter, bringing Starrett's total nine-month haul for his challenge to U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., to $917,846.
"Raising more than $900,000 in nine months shows that conservatives continue to rally behind Grant Starrett's visionary campaign for Congress," said Tommy Schultz, Starrett's campaign manager. "Tennesseans are looking for a faithful conservative like Grant who will go to Washington and fight for our country's future."
But Robert Jameson, spokesman for DesJarlais' campaign, claimed Friday that much of Starrett's funding comes from outside the district he hopes to represent.
"Grant Starrett has raised less than one percent of his funds from within Tennessee's Fourth Congressional District," Jameson said. "His campaign can try to spin this however they like, but the fact is Grant has gained no support in the district. Now his plan is to use huge sums of out of state money to try and buy a congressional seat. Unfortunately for him, the Fourth District is not for sale."
The latest Federal Election Commission filings cover the period from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.
Politico has rated the DesJarlais-Starrett matchup in next August's GOP primary as one of the top five congressional races nationally to watch in 2016.
In 2014, DesJarlais, a South Pittsburg physician, barely survived a GOP primary challenge from state Sen. Jim Tracy, who bombarded the congressman over his pre-political life that included affairs and pressure on a former patient he'd slept with to get an abortion.
But DesJarlais says that's all in the past and his life since changed dramatically following his 2001 divorce from his first wife.
Starrett campaign manager Schultz said in the news release that for years "DC politicians who say one thing, then do another, have put our country into a grave circumstance - like when Scott DesJarlais voted for $700 billion in Food Stamps or against spending cuts to Obama's wasteful green energy programs like Solyndra-where we are now facing a financial, moral, and constitutional crisis."
Schultz said "we need a new generation, with conservatives like Grant Starrett, to fight to get this country away from small dreams and socialism."
DesJarlais has defended his vote for the farm bill, saying farmers in the sprawling, largely rural 4th Congressional District backed the measure.