Photo: TLC
The 10th child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar wants to get into politics.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Mar 11, 2020
One of the Duggar kids is hoping to leverage is reality TV fame into a political career. Jed Duggar is running for the Arkansas House of delegates, promising to uphold his very conservative values as a lawmaker.
The 21-year-old is the 10th child of the family that TLC made famous — he was quickly followed by child number 11, his twin brother Jeremiah. He has lived his whole life in the state of Arkansas and his father served in the state legislature at one time so giving back to his state isn't such a radical concept. But he's running against a popular incumbent and he doesn't have much experience in politics or in a career. Will voters want to give him a chance?
Who is Jed Duggar and what are the details of his political campaign?
1. Who is Jed Duggar?
Jed is a reality TV star whose family is known for the show 19 Kids And Counting, which chronicled the lives of a giant fundamentalist Christian family in Arkansas. Jed Duggar, who was 10 when filming began was on the show from its inception in 2008 until it was abruptly shut down in 2015 after revelations that his older brother Josh had sexually abused several girls, including several of the Duggar sisters. The family and the network rebranded the show and called it Counting On, with the updated series following the lives of the adult children as they got married and had families of their own.
2. Jed Duggar was brought up to be very conservative.
Fans of the show know that the Duggars are members of the Independent Baptist religion, a strict form of patriarchal Christianity, where the father of the family is the absolute leader in all things. The kids grew up with very strict rules about their behavior. They were all required to dress modestly, they were homeschooled with a Christian curriculum, and most of their travel opportunities were for religious gatherings or missionary work.
They even had extremely strict rules about how they were allowed to interact with the opposite sex. They weren't allowed to casually date or even be alone with people of the opposite sex who weren't family. Most of the adult children had their first kisses on their wedding day, never mind any contact more intimate that that.
3. His family has always been politically active.
Duggar dad Jim Bob was actually a politician before he was a reality star. The Duggar patriarch served in the Arkansas legislature from 1999-2002. In 2002, he tried to run for the US Senate but lost in the Republican primary. Later, he made a run for State Senate but lost that race as well.
Eldest son Josh was a DC lobbyist for a while, working for the advocacy arm of the very conservative Family Research Council. He had to resign after revelations that he was committing adultery and had an addiction to pornography.
The rest of the family has gotten engaged in political activities like attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, endorsing conservative candidates, and recording robo-calls to defeat bills that would offer equality to the LGBTQ+ community.
4. Now Jed Duggar is running for office.
Though he's only 21 years old and his education consists of a GED he earned after a lifetime of being taught at home, he feels he's qualified to serve the people of the 89th legislative district of Arkansas. He announced his campaign on Instagram back in November 2019.
The only problem is that he doesn't live in the district where he is running. Prior to announcing his bid for office, he lived at his parents' home in the 87th district. That problem was apparently easily solved, however. His father owns a lot of property all over the state and Duggar can either list one of those properties as an in-district address or he could use his dad's real estate connections to otherwise set himself up to reside where he is running.
He announced his campaign last year.
5. His platform is extremely conservative.
As you would expect from a man who comes from as strict a conservative background as the Duggars, his political positions are all to the far right of the spectrum. On his website, he described himself as "a pro-life conservative and a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA). He is pro-business, pro-family, and is committed to putting Springdale’s conservative values first." He goes on to say that he wants to protect the unborn, protect the Second Amendment, protect religious liberty, and create jobs. He offers no plans for how he would do any of those things, however.
6. Does he have a chance of winning?
Duggar will be facing off against Megan Godfrey, a one-term incumbent Democrat. She narrowly edged out an incumbent Republican in 2018 by a margin of only 29 votes. Godfrey is a married mother of two and has a masters degree in education. She has worked on issues relating to education and child welfare since being elected. Because this is a state race and the election is still months off, there isn't any polling to check out. There's no way to guess right now if Arkansas voters will be dazzled by a reality star or if they're happy with the current representative.
The election will be held on November 3, 2020.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.