Mike Croley isn’t your typical candidate. A veteran, engineer, former Park Ranger, and devoted father, he is running for Congress because he believes Tennessee’s 6th District deserves leadership focused on service instead of self-interest. Mike has spent his life working directly with people and solving real-world problems, and he believes representation should be about listening to constituents, not lecturing them, and serving communities instead of selling out to powerful interests.
After graduating from Ohio County High School in Kentucky, Mike enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served as an Electronics Technician and earned recognition for meritorious advancement. His dedication and hard work led to an NROTC scholarship, allowing him to attend Vanderbilt University, where he earned a degree in civil and environmental engineering. Following his commission and service as a Navy officer, Mike chose to make Tennessee his permanent home and began his civilian career with the TVA EnergyRight program as an efficiency engineer. In that role, he worked directly with families and businesses to lower utility costs and improve energy efficiency, beginning what would become a lifelong commitment to practical public service.
Mike’s passion for serving both people and the environment eventually led him to the Tennessee State Park Rangers. After graduating from the Tennessee Law Enforcement Academy in 2016, he served on the front lines of conservation, protecting Tennessee’s natural resources and witnessing firsthand how public lands provide a refuge and gathering place for people from every background. While working as a Ranger and raising a young family, Mike continued his education and earned a Master’s Degree in Public Safety from Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville. His experience and leadership later earned him a prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship, where he served within the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Mike is not a career politician or a product of a political machine. He is a husband and father who sees the challenges facing working families every day. With his wife, Bethany, serving in the local school system and four children at home, the struggles facing Tennessee families are deeply personal to him. Mike believes the government can and should work better for ordinary people. He has seen both the best and worst of how the government operates and believes it can become more efficient, accountable, and responsive to the people it serves.
His campaign is built on transparency, honesty, and a commitment to standing up for working families who feel ignored by the political establishment. Mike’s priorities include fixing the healthcare system so it serves people instead of profits, restoring funding to schools to give every child a fair opportunity, ending behind-closed-doors politics where special interests dominate decision-making, and bringing accountability to Washington by applying the same efficiency-focused mindset he developed throughout his engineering and public service career. Mike Croley says he is not running to represent a political party, but to represent every person in the district who feels overlooked and told to “wait their turn.” He believes the time for waiting is over.
Mike Croley is running for Congress because he believes the government should work for ordinary people again. His campaign is built around three core principles: affordability, accessibility, and accountability. Mike knows families across Tennessee’s 6th District are being crushed by rising costs, stagnant wages, and a political system that too often favors billionaires and corporations over working people. He believes no family should have to choose between groceries and medicine, no student should fear they can’t afford a future, and no parent should worry about whether they can provide for their children.
On affordability, Mike is focused on lowering the everyday costs that are hurting Tennessee families the most. He supports ending reckless economic policies that raise prices on consumers, investing in affordable housing, strengthening labor protections, supporting American industry and skilled trades, and ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share instead of shifting the burden onto working families. He believes the government should prioritize economic policies that help people build stable lives rather than enrich corporations and special interests.
On accessibility, Mike believes the government should be responsive, reachable, and willing to serve the people it represents. His own experience losing his federal position during sweeping government cuts showed him how disconnected elected officials can become from the people they are supposed to help. After struggling to get meaningful assistance from his own representative, Mike decided Tennesseans deserve leaders who show up, listen, and fight for them. He supports expanding access to healthcare, protecting reproductive care, improving services for veterans, making voting easier and more accessible, and ensuring every citizen has a meaningful voice in democracy.
On accountability, Mike believes the public has lost trust in government because too many politicians answer to donors, lobbyists, and corporate interests instead of voters. He supports stronger campaign finance laws, banning members of Congress from trading stocks, enacting term limits, increasing transparency in government, and cracking down on corruption and corporate monopolies that harm consumers and workers. Mike believes no one – whether a politician, corporation, or government agency – should be above the law, and that public office should be about serving people, not building personal wealth or power.
At its core, Mike Croley’s campaign is about restoring faith that the government can still work for everyday Americans. He is running not as a career politician, but as a veteran, public servant, husband, and father who believes the people of Tennessee’s 6th District deserve leadership that fights for them openly, honestly, and without compromise.