{"biography":"## Current office and 2026 campaign\nBarry Austin is a Republican candidate for Van Buren County Mayor on the August 6, 2026 county general ballot. He maintains a campaign page titled \"Barry Austin for Van Buren County Mayor\" [1].\n\n## Office history\nAustin currently serves on the Van Buren County Board of Education, representing District 3 [2]. The county's fiscal-year 2022 annual financial report lists him as chairman of the county Audit Committee [3].\n\n## Sources\n[1] [Barry Austin for Van Buren County Mayor - Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/p/Barry-Austin-for-Van-Buren-County-Mayor-61578521430344/) - accessed 2026-07-23\n[2] [Van Buren County Elected Officials](https://vanburencountytn.com/elected_officials/index.html) - accessed 2026-07-23\n[3] [Van Buren County, Tennessee Annual Financial Report FY2022 (TN Comptroller)](https://comptroller.tn.gov/content/dam/cot/la/documents/county/2022/FY22VanBurenAFR.pdf) - accessed 2026-07-23\n\n## Further candidate material (not accessible for this profile)\n- [Van Buren County Elects New Mayor, Sheriff - News Talk 94.1](https://newstalk941.com/van-buren-county-elects-new-mayor-sheriff/) (could not access; redirects to a page that returns HTTP 403 - may contain relevant prior-election context)","campaigns":[{"contest":"county_mayor","county":"Vanburen","county_count":1,"electiondate":"Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT","pgr":"general","state":"TN","title":"County Mayor"}],"cf_filings":[],"firstname":"BARRY","fullname":"BARRY EUGENE AUSTIN","lastname":"AUSTIN","middlename":"EUGENE","office_history":[{"campaigns":[{"contest":"county_mayor","contest_title":"County Mayor","county":"Vanburen","county_count":1,"electiondate":"2026-08-06","office_county":null,"office_key":"county_mayor","office_title":null,"party":"R","pgr":"general","state":"TN"}],"county":null,"cycles":[{"general":{"contest":"county_mayor","contest_title":"County Mayor","county":"Vanburen","county_count":1,"electiondate":"2026-08-06","office_county":null,"office_key":"county_mayor","office_title":null,"party":"R","pgr":"general","state":"TN"},"party":"R","primary":null,"term":null,"year":2026}],"office_key":"county_mayor","office_title":"County Mayor","state":"TN","terms":[]}],"summary":"Republican candidate for Van Buren County Mayor; currently serves on the county Board of Education (District 3).","terms":[],"token":"HLnJu3g6gO"}