Negative PAC mailers in Sullivan mayoral race connected to Jeff Roe

BLOUNTVILLE — As in-person voting takes place in Tuesday's May 5 Republican primary in Sullivan County following April early voting, documents in another state indicate so-called "dark money" political action committee ads against GOP county mayoral candidate Zane Vanover appear to be connected to the same person. His name is Jeff Roe, and he has and has had connections with Vanover's opponent, Republican Angie Stanley, and the congresswoman who has endorsed Stanley and along with her husband supported Stanley's campaign. Public documents available online through the Missouri Secretary of State show a connection between recent "dark money" PAC mailers under investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The PACs have sent out mailers in the campaigns of Stanley and U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-1st. Her husband, Bob Harshbarger Jr., is a supporter of Stanley, and the congresswoman has endorsed Stanley via a PAC mailer and a PAC-funded electronic communication. Both the congresswoman and her husband gave in-kind donations to the Stanley campaign, according to Stanley's pre-primary report released last week. Bob Harshbarger also is seeking one of three District 6 seats on the Sullivan County Commission and has given $10,500 spread among six candidates for commission seats, $1,900 for five candidates and $1,000 for the sixth one. He gave $100 to his own campaign. Local media and public attention has been focused recently on the PACs listed as having paid for negative attack mailers more common on the state and national levels, but attention has not focused on who paid the bill for the bulk prepaid political advertisements. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation recently launched a probe into PAC activities by Tennessee Stand PAC, which despite being similar in name to Tennessee Stands has no connection to the later entity. Tennessee Stands filed a complaint with the state Registry of Election Finance in Nashville. Sullivan County District Attorney Barry Staubus requested the TBI probe, he said, because of concerns over the confusion of names as well as that PAC having sent out mailers earlier in the year, back in February, but showing no financial activity on its campaign finance disclosure forms. "The investigation remains active and ongoing," TBI spokeswoman Leslie Earhart said in an emailed response to a question about the status of the probe Monday afternoon. A review of some of the negative PAC mailers, along with mailers sent by Diana Harshbarger and Stanley campaigns in the past, show payments for them came from Core Insight. It is listed as a "fictitious name" in Missouri for Command LLC. Roe signed the registration for Command LLC, and Roe also is founder of the Missouri-based Axiom Strategies LLC. Axiom and a sister company is listed in Stanley's 2026 campaign finance disclosures as receiving funds from Stanley campaign expenditures. "They (in the Stanley campaign) knew about then negative ads," Vanover said Tuesday evening. Stanley said that people need to realize the Defend US PAC that put out mailers for Vanover in the race is also a "dark money" PAC. "He takes money from the dark money (PAC), too," Stanley said. "There's not two PACs (in the mayoral race), there's three PACs." Documentation for the digital information trail is online at https://bsd.sos.mo.gov/BusinessEntity/BESearch.aspx?SearchType=0. In addition, Command LLC and Axiom Strategies share the same registered agent of record: James C Thomas III, also shows on information available on the the same Missouri Secretary of State website. As well as being on campaign financial report forms for Stanley's current mayoral campaign, Axiom and its subsidiaries are on public campaign finance reports for Diana Harshbarger and the East Tennessee Conservative PAC. Also, Core Insight's postage payment proof appears on mailers for Diana Harshbarger's 2020 campaign, Angie Stanley's narrowly failed 2020 mayoral campaign against Republican Richard Venable by 121 votes, East Tennessee Conservative PAC's 2024 attacks on then-Sen. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol. Bob and Diana Harshbarger's son, Bobby Harshbarger, successfully campaigned to take Lundberg's place in the Tenneseee state Senate seat for District 4, Sullivan and Hawkins counties. Core Insights postage payment proof also most recently appeared on the negative mailers in the 2026 Sullivan County GOP primary, targeting Vanover, although not all the PAC ads were anti-Vanover; some were pro-Stanley. The other anti-Vanover/pro-Stanley PAC is Sullivan County First PAC. Meanwhile, the Defend US PAC put out mailers supporting Vanover but not mentioning Stanley. Core Insight postage indicia appears on mailers for Diana Harshbarger's 2020 campaign, Angie Stanley's 2022 campaign, East Tennessee Conservatives PAC's 2024 attacks on Jon Lundberg, and the 2026 Sullivan County attack PAC mailers. The postage markings are on both the Sullivan First PAC and Tennessee Stand PAC mailers. Other links include one on Axiom Strategies at https://bsd.sos.mo.gov/BusinessEntity/BusinessEntityDetail.aspx?ID=1805437&page=beSearch and a general database search of Tennessee campaign financials at https://apps.tn.gov/tncamp/public/ceresults.htm. CAMPAIGN TRAIL BACKTRACKING As primary election day is upon voters, some other items buried in past campaign contributions and events in Sullivan County races show that the 2026 election cycle was not the first one in which Bob Harshbarger helped fund a County Commission candidate. The record shows that Bob Harshbarger gave Vanover a $500 contribution in the later's successful campaign to win his District 6 County Commission seat in 2022. Vanover is not seeking reelection to that seat. In fact, no District 6 commissioner is seeking reelection. Vanover is trying to move on to mayor, while Jessica Means of Kingsport is challenging state Rep. John Crawford, R-Kingsport, in the Aug. 6 primary and David Horne is not seeking reelection. Also in the not-so-distant past, Vanover and his wife, Kay, provided the venue of the Republicans of Kingsport Patriot Picnic at the Cleek Farms barn near U.S. Highway 11W or Stone Drive across from New Beason Well Road. Among those at that event were Bobby Harshbarger, son of Diana and Bob Harshbarger, and the incumbent he would beat, Lundberg. And in some ways the county mayoral contest has some of its roots in the Bloomingdale community to the north/northeast of the barn where the picnic was held. Vanover said he attended school from 2nd through 12th grades, first at Kingsley Elementary School and then at Ketron High School, confirmed by others who attended Kingsley and Ketron in that timeframe. Back then, Vanover sometimes went by Randy instead of Zane, and the future congressman and future pharmacist went by her maiden name, Diana Ketron. They were in the same grade in school, by the way, according to Vanover. Moving forward a bit, although Vanover and Stanley both were deemed "bona fide" Republicans by the county GOP, which required that they vote in the last three of four GOP state primaries in which they were eligible to vote, Vanover's campaign put out mailer information that Stanley voted in a Democratic primary in 2008. More recently, an image of an older voting record of Vanover's indicate he voted in the 1990 Democratic primary. Vanover said he didn't remember doing that and that his campaign checked voting records as far back as electronic records went but not to older paper records. Stanley has not contested her 2008 vote but has declined comment on it in interviews. Sullivan County Administrator of Elections Jason Booher said in an email response to a question about the voting record Monday that the document appears legitimate but that he would have to research records to be sure. The vote would have been just more than 36 years ago, while Stanley's 2008 Democratic primary vote, repeatedly used by the Vanover campaign, would have been 18 years ago. "Donald Trump was a Democrat then, but I certainly wasn't," Vanover said last Thursday of Republican President Trump, of whom Stanley is a staunch supporter. Trump at one time was a registered Democrat, although Tennessee does not have voters register by party affiliation, and he was seen in the company of Democratic President Bill Clinton. Late President Ronald Reagan also was once a Democrat, a New Deal Democrat in the era of Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Reagan also was president of the Screen Actors Guild.