James Robert Duggar (born July 18, 1965) is an American politician and television personality. He appeared on the reality series ''

19 Kids and Counting ''19 Kids and Counting'' (formerly ''17 Kids and Counting'' and ''18 Kids and Counting'') is an American reality television series that aired on the cable channel TLC for seven years until its cancellation in 2015. The show features the Duggar ...

,'' which aired from 2008 to 2015. From 1999 to 2003, he was a Republican member of the

Arkansas House of Representatives The Arkansas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Arkansas General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Arkansas. The House has 100 members elected from an equal number of constituencies across the state. Each distr ...

Early life

Duggar was born in Springdale, now the fourth largest city in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

, the son of James Lee "Jimmy Lee" Duggar (1936–2009) and the former Mary Leona Lester (1941–2019), who owned a real estate brokerage agency. He graduated from

Shiloh Christian School Shiloh Christian School is a private school, private Baptist Christian school in Springdale, Arkansas, United States. History Shiloh Christian School was founded in 1976 as a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Springdale, by Dennis Cottrell ...

Career

Duggar is a licensed realtor and owns several commercial properties in his local area as an investor.

Political career

From 1999 to 2003, Duggar served in the

for District 6, which was located in northern Washington County. He first won election in 1998, defeating Kathy McFetridge with 56% of the vote. He was re-elected by a wider margin in 2000. Duggar was vice chair of the House Corrections and Criminal Law Subcommittee and also participated in the committees on Insurance and Commerce and Judiciary. In

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

, rather than seeking reelection to the state House, Duggar ran unsuccessfully in the Republican

primary election Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pr ...

for the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

. He was defeated by the

incumbent The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election. There may or may not be ...

Senator

Tim Hutchinson Young Timothy Hutchinson (born August 11, 1949) is an American politician, lobbyist, and former United States senator from the state of Arkansas. A Republican, he was the first Republican U.S. senator to represent Arkansas since the reconstr ...

by a lopsided vote of 71,576 to 20,546. In 2006, Duggar unsuccessfully sought the Republican

nomination Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list. Political office In ...

for the District 35 seat in the

Arkansas State Senate The Arkansas State Senate is the upper branch of the Arkansas General Assembly. The Senate consists of 35 members, each representing a district with about 83,000 people. Service in the state legislature is part-time, and many state senators have ...

. He lost to his opponent, Bill Pritchard, by two hundred votes. In 2021, Duggar announced his second candidacy for the State Senate, now running in the 7th District. The election was triggered after the incumbent Republican, Lance Eads, resigned. Duggar finished third out of four candidates in the Republican primary, with 15.3% of the vote.

Marriage and children

On July 21, 1984, Duggar married Michelle Annette Ruark. Together, the couple has 19 children: Joshua ("Josh") (b. 1988), twins Jana and John-David (b. 1990), Jill (b. 1991), Jessa (b. 1992), Jinger (b. 1993), Joseph (b. 1995), Josiah (b. 1996), Joy-Anna (b. 1997), twins Jedidiah and Jeremiah (b. 1998), Jason (b. 2000), James (b. 2001), Justin (b. 2002), Jackson (b. 2004), Johannah (b. 2005), Jennifer (b. 2007), Jordyn (b. 2008), and Josie (b. 2009). Duggar and his wife also have had permanent guardianship of his wife's great-nephew Tyler Hutchins (b. 2008), since November 2016. The family was featured on the reality series ''

'' from 2008 to 2015. Duggar and his family are

Independent Baptist Independent Baptist churches (also called Independent Fundamental Baptists or IFB) are Christian congregations that generally hold to fundamentalist or conservative views of Evangelical Christianity and Baptist beliefs, such as believer's bapti ...

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

. They are members of the

Institute in Basic Life Principles The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) is a nondenominational Christian fundamentalist organisation established by American Christian minister Bill Gothard in 1961. The stated purpose of the organization is to provide instruction on ho ...

organization (aka IBLP and Advanced Training Institute), a homeschooling program run by Christian minister

Bill Gothard William W. Gothard Jr. (born November 2, 1934) is an American Christian minister, speaker, and writer, and the founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), an independent fundamentalist Christian organization. His conservative tea ...

. Duggar's oldest daughter, Jana Wissman, is a leader at the IBLP's "Journey to the Heart" youth ministry.

Josh Duggar molestation report

In 2006, Jim Bob Duggar told the

Arkansas State Police The Arkansas State Police is a state police division of the Arkansas Department of Public Safety and is responsible for enforcing motor vehicle laws, traffic laws, and criminal laws. The Arkansas State Police serves as an assisting agency to l ...

that his oldest son, Josh, had molested five underage girls,Josh Duggar sex scandal reported
, intouchweekly.com; accessed May 22, 2015. including family members, in the early 2000s when he was 14–15 years old. The alleged abuse involved touching their breast and genital regions on multiple occasions while they slept and in a few cases while they were awake. Jim Bob Duggar had been prompted to speak to police after producers of ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' is an American first-run syndicated talk show that was hosted by Oprah Winfrey. The show ran for twenty-five seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in which it broadcast 4,561 episodes. The show was taped i ...

'' told authorities they had received allegations against Josh Duggar. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar told police they had sent Josh away for several months in 2003 and that, upon his return home, Jim Bob had taken him to Arkansas State Trooper Jim Hutchens, a family acquaintance, for a "stern talk". Because of this 2003 contact with police, the three-year

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

had expired by the time of the December 2006 police investigation, and Josh Duggar was not formally charged with any crime. The public did not learn about this until 2015, when Josh Duggar's public admission of his behavior caused TLC to cancel the reality show ''19 Kids and Counting''. In a joint statement to ''

People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

'' magazine following the public revelation, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said: "Even though we would never choose to go through something so terrible, each one of our family members drew closer to God. We pray that as people watch our lives they see that we are not a perfect family. We have challenges and struggles every day." TLC rebooted the Duggar's reality show as ''Counting On'' later in 2015, focusing on the older Duggar children and their spouses and children. This show, too, was canceled in 2021 after Josh Duggar was arrested. On December 9, 2021, Josh Duggar was convicted of receiving and possessing child pornography.

Books

Duggar and his wife have written two books together, both published by

Howard Books Howard Books (formerly Howard Publishing) is a Christian publishing company founded in 1969 by Alton Howard and previously based in West Monroe, Louisiana, but which relocated to Brentwood, Tennessee, (south of Nashville) in September 2009. I ...

. The first is titled ''The Duggars: 20 and Counting!'', which was released on December 2, 2008. Their second is ''A Love That Multiplies'', which was released June 7, 2011.

Other political activities

In 2008, Duggar and his wife endorsed former

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Mike Huckabee Michael Dale Huckabee (, born August 24, 1955) is an American diplomat, political commentator, Baptist minister, and politician serving as the 29th United States Ambassador to Israel, United States ambassador to Israel since 2025. A member of ...

in his campaign for the Republican presidential primaries. In January 2012, the Duggars endorsed Republican former U.S. Senator

Rick Santorum Richard John Santorum Sr. ( ; born May 10, 1958) is an American politician, attorney, author, and political commentator who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007. He was the Senate's Chairman of the United Sta ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

for president.

Electoral history

References

External links

Duggar family website
*
Arkansas House of Representatives page (archived from November 2002)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duggar, Jim Bob 1965 births Living people American investors American real estate brokers American television writers American male television writers Baptists from Arkansas Businesspeople from Arkansas Duggar family Republican Party members of the Arkansas House of Representatives Participants in American reality television series People from Springdale, Arkansas Writers from Arkansas People from Washington County, Arkansas Screenwriters from Arkansas 21st-century members of the Arkansas General Assembly 20th-century members of the Arkansas General Assembly