U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn ekes out Tennessee governor’s seat

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn scratched out a victory Tuesday to become the first woman governor in Tennessee history, claiming a mandate to govern conservatively even though she failed to capture a majority vote.

Final unofficial reports from the Tennessee Secretary of State showed Blackburn, a former Tennessee lawmaker who also served as a U.S. House member before winning the Senate seat in 2018, picked up 45.6% of the vote to 43% for Democrat Jerri Green and 9.3% for independent David Hatley, an upper East Tennessee businessman targeted by the Blackburn campaign and dark-money groups with a barrage of negative TV ads. 

Blackburn claimed victory at 10 p.m. 

Blackburn’s campaign barely mentioned Green in the runup to Tuesday’s vote as Hatley nearly played spoiler in the race in spite of revelations that he was convicted of bank fraud decades ago and only recently had his voting rights restored.

“Tennessee did not just elect a governor, it chose a direction,” Blackburn said Tuesday night at The Pinnacle in downtown Nashville where she held her victory party with a crowd of several hundred who warmed up for the night with drinks and country music.

Blackburn did not mention the close margin of the election’s outcome, but said it is clear Tennesseans want a governor who will “govern on conservative principles.” She noted she will fight against socialist and Islamic policies and will put more money in people’s pockets, though she didn’t mention specifics, other than trying to lower property taxes.

In addition, Blackburn said she will focus on affordable housing, fighting crime, safe elections and making sure children have educational choices. Citing a familiar refrain, she mentioned keeping boys out of girls’ locker rooms.

Blackburn also said that Tennessee voters agree with the death penalty. 

In picking up the narrow win, Blackburn captured nearly all of Tennessee’s rural areas while Green carried the state’s urban counties, Hamilton, Knox, Davidson and Shelby.

President Donald Trump declined to endorse Blackburn during her primary race against U.S. Rep. John Rose of Cookeville but supported her in an Election Day statement in which he criticized Green and said Blackburn would “fight tirelessly” to grow the economy, cut taxes and regulations and unleash American energy dominance. Trump didn’t mention Hatley in his social media post.

Blackburn overlooked Green during the general election campaign and began hammering Hatley shortly after the Republican primary, starting a website called deadbeatDave.com with pictures of him wearing prison clothing and pointing out his bank fraud convictions. 

Two dark-money groups spent nearly $10 million attacking Hatley in the runup to the vote, including the Tennessee Freedom Fund and a pro-Blackburn PAC called Team Tennessee that poured in $3 million, and the Choose Freedom Fund, a group linked to MAGA Inc., which spent $6.5 million blasting the independent candidate.

Hatley, though, said he had been open about his past indiscretions in a biography, writing that he was convicted of writing bad checks when he was trying to start his business in his early 20s.

Calling himself a conservative candidate, Hatley poured $12 million into his campaign and spent a good deal of energy driving home the claim that he couldn’t be bought by dark money or outside forces. During a forum last week, he said he would end “pay for play.”

Blackburn refused to participate in debates during the Republican primary and didn’t attend a gubernatorial forum at Middle Tennessee State University last week.

Green, a public defender and Memphis City Council member, said during the forum that she was the only person on the stage who had a path to election. Hatley and independent Lauren Pinkston also attended, but Green previously called on Pinkston to drop out of the race and accused Hatley of trying to buy the office.

From her Election Night event in Chattanooga, Green conceded the race shortly before 11 p.m. 

“Tonight isn’t the result we wanted,” Green said. “I know and understand this hurts.”

“Tonight I didn’t win for you but I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere, that you are not going anywhere, that we are not going anywhere.”

She raised $1.5 million for the campaign and brought in another $600,000 in the final reporting period, for a little more than $2 million. Green said, if elected, she would seek Medicaid expansion, issue an executive order to allow doctors to practice women’s healthcare without the threat of prosecution under the state’s anti-abortion laws and end the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She also wanted to stop the renewal of private prison contracts, eliminate the state grocery tax and cut tax rebates to big businesses.