Diana Harshbarger

Diana Lynn Harshbarger (/ˈhɑːrʃbɑːrɡər/ HARSH-bar-gər; born January 1, 1960) is an American pharmacist, businesswoman, and politician. Harshbarger has served as the U.S. representative for Tennessee's 1st congressional district since 2021. Her district is based in the Tri-Cities area in northeastern Tennessee.

A member of the Republican Party and a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, Harshbarger was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2020, succeeding incumbent representative Phil Roe. She won reelection in 2022 and 2024. A member of the Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee, she is the only woman in Tennessee’s house delegation.

Harshbarger was considering a run for Governor of Tennessee in 2026, however, she said she would only run if Senator Marsha Blackburn did not run.

Harshbarger was born in Kingsport, Tennessee, and raised in nearby Bloomingdale. She is the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She attended East Tennessee State University and earned her Doctor of Pharmacy from Mercer University.

Harshbarger has been a licensed pharmacist since 1987. She and her husband, Bob, operate Premier Pharmacy, a compounding pharmacy.

After six-term incumbent and fellow Republican Phil Roe opted to retire from the United States House of Representatives, Harshbarger announced her candidacy to succeed him in the United States House of Representatives for Tennessee's 1st congressional district. She won the 17-way August 5 Republican primary and defeated Democratic nominee Blair Walsingham in the November general election. She had effectively clinched a seat in Congress with her victory in the primary, since the 1st is one of the few ancestrally Republican districts in the South; it has been in Republican hands for all but four years since 1861, and Democrats have garnered as much as 40% of the vote only twice since 1898. When Harshbarger took office on January 3, 2021, she became the fifth woman elected to Congress from Tennessee, but only the third who was not a stand-in for her husband, after Diane Black and Marsha Blackburn. The 1st historically gives its incumbents very long tenures in Washington; Harshbarger is only the ninth person to hold the seat in 100 years.

Harshbarger focused her campaign on fixing the opioid crisis, advocating anti-abortion legislation, and protecting religious freedom. She also highlighted American dependence on Chinese pharmaceutical imports as an issue of national security. During the Republican primary, her opponents criticized her over her alleged involvement with American Inhalation Medication Specialists (AIMS), a business her husband ran that sold mislabeled pharmaceuticals from China. In 2013 Robert Harshbarger pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to the company and was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison, in addition to over $800,000 in restitution and over $400,000 in asset forfeiture. Harshbarger's campaign said she had no involvement with AIMS, despite corporate records to the contrary.

Harshbarger declined to debate her competitors during the primary and general elections.