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DesJarlais Will Run for Re-Election in 2014 #TN04

DesJarlais' primary opponent announced their quarterly fundraising. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
DesJarlais' primary opponent announced their quarterly fundraising. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., announced officially on Wednesday that he will seek re-election in 2014, according to a local news report.

DesJarlais will announce his re-election at an Aug. 7 official kickoff event in the 4th District — exactly one year from the primary, reported the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

His announcement comes a little more than a week after he posted a paltry second-quarter fundraising haul, casting doubts as to whether he could run a competitive campaign for Congress.

The two-term member has just $88,000 in cash on hand in a three-way primary against two well-funded and well-connected Republicans in 2014.

Republicans in Tennessee have warned DesJarlais that he faces a significant challenge to re-election in 2014, following personal scandals that surfaced at the end of the 2012 campaign.

A month before the 2012 election, reports surfaced from DesJarlais’ decade-old divorce proceedings that he carried on multiple affairs with patients and co-workers while he was practicing medicine in Tennessee. DesJarlais was also accused of pressuring a mistress and his wife to have multiple abortions, despite billing himself as an anti-abortion advocate and prescribing pills to at least one patient with whom he was carrying on an affair.

DesJarlais was fined earlier this year for two affairs he had with patients.

Tennessee’s 4th District is rated a Safe Republican contest by Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call.

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