Blackburn advances to general election, first woman to win party nomination 

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Thursday advanced to the general election in November, defeating U.S. Rep. John Rose and becoming the first woman to win the Republican nomination for governor. 

Despite polls in the final weeks of the campaign showing a tightening race, Blackburn cruised to victory. By 9 p.m. Thursday, after The Associated Press called the race, she had 43.8% of the primary vote with several precinct vote totals yet to be recorded.

Rose had 32.7% of the primary vote and state Rep. Monty Fritts of Kingston received 23.4% as the race was called.

Soon after Blackburn was reelected to her second Senate term in November 2024, she began floating rumors she would run for governor, but didn’t make a formal announcement of her gubernatorial campaign until August 2025. 

She ran her first campaign ad in June, a spot that featured her touting her toughness on threats from China while crushing fortune cookies in a Nashville restaurant decorated to look like a Chinese restaurant. 

Rose, a former state commissioner of agriculture who was elected to Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District in 2018, announced his candidacy in March 2025, but got off to a slow start. 

He gave his campaign $5 million early on but didn’t begin running advertisements until May. He conceded the election to Blackburn around 8:30 p.m. Thursday night and said he would be supporting her in the general election.

“Thanks to this campaign, I gained a deeper love for this state and its people,” Rose told a crowd of about 500 supporters at his Cookeville election party. Rose told a Tennessee Lookout reporter he would have to take time to think about whether he will run again in four years.

Rose received his strongest support from farmers, including people such as Ron Ash of Savannah, who said he backed the congressman because of his “conservative” values and work in agriculture.

The Blackburn juggernaut 

Blackburn’s 30 years in elected office and longtime Republican Party activism built a bulwark too formidable for Rose or Fritts to overcome. 

A native of Mississippi and former image consultant, Blackburn organized the first Young Republicans group outside of East Tennessee in Williamson County in the early 1980s before chairing the Williamson County Republican Party. 

Former Gov. Don Sundquist appointed her as executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission in 1995, a post she held for two years. 

She was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1998 and led opposition to Sundquist’s proposal of a state income tax in 2001, before running for and winning the 7th Congressional District seat in 2002. 

When U.S. Sen. Bob Corker announced he would not seek reelection in 2018, Blackburn jumped in the race to replace him, facing off in the general election against former two-term Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen. According to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that tracks political spending, the race was the seventh most expensive race in the 2018 campaign cycle, with more than $90,000 spent by the candidates and by outside groups. 

Although the race was thought to be competitive, Blackburn defeated Bredesen by 12 percentage points. 

Both Blackburn and Rose have consistently voted with President Donald Trump, with Blackburn becoming one of the first U.S. representatives to endorse him after he announced his candidacy for president in 2015. 

On Jan. 6, 2021, Rose voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.

But Trump declined to endorse either candidate, despite a third-party group, the Tennessee Freedom Fund — a political action group, PAC, affiliated with conservative private school choice group Club For Growth — running TV ads on Blackburn’s behalf featuring footage of her and Trump. 

Blackburn took political heat for refusing to debate or appear in public forums with her two opponents, as well as for leaked documents from a Senate Ethics Committee investigation alleging her campaign manager, Ward Baker, urged Senate staff members to participate in campaign activities, a violation of federal law. 

Only six women have run for governor in Tennessee’s history. Blackburn will face Democrat Jerri Green, a Memphis city councilmember, in the general election, making for the state’s first all-woman partisan gubernatorial field.