Rose primarily self-funding as Blackburn leads governors candidates in donations made by Tennesseans

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn has raised money from over 6,000 Tennesseans, outpacing her Republican gubernatorial rivals U.S. Rep. John Rose and state Rep. Monty Fritts in the number of individual contributions by a wide margin.

Rose has raised money from around 1,400 people. Overall, his campaign has raised $10.8 million but that includes almost $9 million in personal loans as of June 30.

Fritts trails the top two, having raised around $255,000 from just over 100 people. All three candidates have also funding received from PACs.

Blackburn has received political campaign contributions from over 19,000 people, about two-thirds of which are from outside the state. Her campaign account has raised a total of $9.5 million.

Chip Forrester, the former chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party and Democratic fundraiser, said there are two ways to look at the transactions and what they mean for voters.

Marsha Blackburn, the $100M woman

On one side, having people donate means they’re invested in the campaign and usually “translates to votes.” On the other side, by self-funding, a candidate truly is “not beholden to any special interests.”

“The general public doesn’t care either way,” Forrester said. “People will say self-funding is buying, but that’s all inside baseball.”

Rose has always self-funded his political campaigns

When Rose announced his run for Tennessee governor in March 2025, he took his time before hitting the airwaves. His campaign didn’t launch its first TV advertisement until 14 months later, and as the race moves into its final weeks, Rose has been pouring more of his personal fortune into the race to match Blackburn’s ad blitz.

Chris Devaney, Rose’s campaign manager, said his personal spending was evidence of Rose’s “investment in his campaign.”

Self-funding has always been part of Rose’s political trajectory, as he made significant money through the ownership and sale of several information technology training companies.

In 2000, Rose sold Transcender Corp., a company he co-founded in 1992, for $60 million. Rose has an estimated net worth of around $55 million, according to Quiver Quantitative, a website that uses the congressional disclosure forms to track net worths and stock transactions. His largest listed asset is a $10-$50 million stake in a venture capital firm called Smith Fork Ventures.

When he first ran for U.S. House in 2018, Rose loaned his campaign almost $4.2 million. Over the next three congressional races, he spent an additional $1.2 million of his own money.

Among the three major Republican candidates, Blackburn has the largest political operation because of her nearly 25 years in Congress. At the federal level, she is one of the most prolific fundraisers through her campaign account and political action committee, having raised almost $54 million over her career in D.C., without any personal funding.

Rose, by contrast, raised about $5.8 million during his eight years in Congress, almost entirely through his campaign account. Rose’s federal PAC brought in $260,000 over its eight years of existence.

Rose does have a federal PAC, but he has yet to set up a state version, meaning he faces strict contribution limits.

The largest donations to his federal campaign and PAC were nearly $200,000, given over several election cycles by payday lender Advance Financial owners Michael and Tina Hodges.

But they have not given to his gubernatorial campaign. The company has given $550,000 to a PAC backing Blackburn for governor, which has purchased TV advertisements attacking Rose.

Rose’s largest state contributors are Sevier County Good Government PAC and Associated General Contractors PAC, which each have given the $30,800 maximum allowed by campaign finance law.