Sen. Marsha Blackburn announces she is running for Tennessee governor
Knox News
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn announced she is running for Tennessee governor, ending months of speculation. The senior senator, a Republican who lives in Brentwood, made the announcement Aug. 6.
“I’m running for governor to ensure Tennessee is America’s conservative leader for this generation and the next,” she said.
The primary election to replace term-limited Gov. Bill Lee is Aug. 6, 2026, and fellow Republican U.S. Rep. John Rose is the only other declared candidate. He announced his candidacy March 20.
In her announcement video, Blackburn shared priorities to “make Tennessee America’s number 1 job-creating, energy-producing powerhouse, to deliver a world class education for our children by empowering parents” and to “deport illegal aliens.
Chris Devany, the chair of Rose’s campaign, predicted in a statement Blackburn would spend much of the campaign talking about issues that don’t have much to do with Tennessee.
“Tennessee is at a crossroads and now we get to have a 365-day conversation about who would make the best CEO of the state,” Devany said. “Senator Blackburn is going to talk a lot about Washington. John is going to talk about his record as a CEO, an outsider, and a reformer.”
Blackburn was the recipient of endorsements from across the state even before she announced she’s running, including from gubernatorial hopeful Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, who backed Blackburn instead of running, and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Chattanooga.
Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee, an influential conservative policy group that helped the state’s school choice voucher program across the finish line, is mobilizing to knock on 200,000 doors to “share how Marsha Blackburn led the way in the U.S. Senate to secure major WINS for President Donald Trump & TN taxpayers.”
Blackburn became the first woman elected to represent Tennessee in the U.S. Senate when she won in 2018. If she is elected governor, she will be the first woman to serve in that role.
In the Senate, she’s been a fierce defender of President Donald Trump’s policies. Recently, she successfully passed legislation to change the federal framework for reporting crimes involving the online sexual exploitation of children.
Blackburn was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1998. She served there until 2003, then was elected to represent part of Middle Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives until her 2018 election to the U.S. Senate. She was reelected to the U.S. Senate in 2024 with 89.5% of the Republican primary vote. In the general election, she received 63.8%.