Health care costs are crushing Tennessee families, and Washington's answer has been to make it worse. Cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid doesn't save money — it closes rural hospitals and sends families to the emergency room for basic care, where we all pay more.

Darden grew up watching his mom work the overnight shift at a factory just to keep the family's health benefits. He knows what a safety net means. In Congress, he'll fight to protect Medicaid, defend affordable health care premiums, lower prescription drug costs, and keep rural hospitals open, because your health shouldn't depend on your zip code or your paycheck. And Darden knows that when we lose a hospital we are losing an entire ecosystem. That not only means less healthcare options, it means fewer jobs.

Washington is broken because too many politicians in both parties treat public office like a stock portfolio. Members of Congress should work for you…not trade on information the rest of us will never see.

Darden supports a full ban on stock trading by members of Congress, their families, and members of the Executive Branch. Darden also refuses to take corporate PAC money during his campaign. He supports term limits, because Congress should be a period of service — not a lifetime career. Corruption isn't a partisan problem, and Darden will call it out wherever it lives, including in his own party.

Darden believes in protecting social security and Medicare so that our seniors can retire with dignity and without financial fears. We all have paid into Social Security and Medicare with every paycheck. They are earned benefits, not handouts — and Darden will fight any attempt by Speaker Johnson and his allies to cut them.

While Washington Republicans push plans to slash benefits, raise the retirement age, and hand Medicare over to private insurers, Darden will draw a hard line: no cuts, no privatization, no games with the retirement security of Tennessee's seniors. Period.

Darden will stand up to Donald Trump and the MAGA extremists who are making everything more expensive. He believes in checks and balances and will not be a rubber stamp for any president or party. Darden is going to do what is right for the people of District 7. He’s less worried about right versus left and more worried about right versus wrong.

Too many Tennessee families are working harder than ever and still falling behind. Housing, groceries, health care, child care…the costs keep climbing while paychecks don't keep up.

Darden will fight to lower costs for working families: taking on price gouging, expanding affordable housing, capping prescription drug prices, and making child care affordable. He'll fight to make corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share — not squeeze the middle class.

Darden isn't a career politician. The only thing he’s been elected to his Elder at his church. He's a business owner with working-class roots who has spent his career building consensus and getting results in both Republican and Democratic communities.

If we're going to change the tone in Washington, we have to change who we send there. Darden will restore checks and balances, work with anyone — in either party — to deliver for District 7, and never mistake gridlock and grandstanding for governing. We can't govern if we can't win, and we can't fix what's broken by sending more of the same.