Candidates for Tennessee Governor: Field, Money, and Vouchers

Twenty-seven people are running to succeed term-limited Governor Bill Lee in the 2026 Tennessee gubernatorial race, with the primary set for August 6, 2026, and the general election on November 3, 2026. Five Republicans, six Democrats, and sixteen independents filed petitions by the March 10, 2026, deadline.¹ U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn leads the Republican field by a wide margin. Memphis Councilmember Jerri Green is the frontrunner among Democrats, though most Democratic voters remain undecided.

The Republican Field

Three candidates are treated as the serious contenders in the GOP primary: Blackburn, Congressman John Rose, and State Representative Monty Fritts. Rebecca Lynn Inman and Carlton Boleyjack also filed.¹

Marsha Blackburn

Blackburn announced her campaign in August 2025 after roughly three decades in public office: four years in the Tennessee state Senate, 16 years in the U.S. House, and a U.S. Senate seat she has held since 2019.¹ Her platform runs on economic growth, stopping illegal immigration, protecting women’s sports, and public safety, and she has been a vocal supporter of expanding Tennessee’s private school voucher program.²

She has aligned her campaign closely with President Trump. Endorsers include Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs — the former professional wrestler known as Kane, who is also serving as her campaign treasurer — former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger, State Senator Shane Reeves, and Congressman Matt Van Epps.³² Jacobs is himself term-limited as Knox County mayor, prompting speculation that Blackburn might appoint him to fill her U.S. Senate seat, which runs through 2031, if she wins.⁴

A May 2026 Beacon Center poll of 1,200 Tennessee voters put Blackburn at 63 percent among likely Republican primary voters, up from 56 percent in January, and had her leading Green by 24 points in a hypothetical general election.⁵ She does have a soft spot with independents: a 2025 Beacon poll measured her net favorability with that group at negative-18, compared with Lee’s positive-4.⁶

John Rose

Congressman John Rose has pitched what he calls a “businessman’s approach to leadership” and says he has campaigned in all 95 Tennessee counties.⁷ He points to a 100 percent lifetime Heritage Action score and his vote against certifying the 2020 presidential election. His stated priorities include natural resources, education funding, infrastructure, expanded healthcare access, and increased energy production.

Rose has repeatedly pressed Blackburn to debate and criticized her for holding what he calls scripted events instead of town halls. As of late June 2026, no debates had been scheduled, and Rose said he would not debate Fritts unless Blackburn also joined.⁷ He has also promised to withhold state incentives from companies he considers “woke,” singling out a $30 million package for Starbucks approved under Lee.

The May 2026 Beacon poll put Rose at 10 percent.⁵⁸⁹

Monty Fritts

State Representative Monty Fritts, a two-term legislator from House District 32, announced his candidacy in September 2025 at a Washington County Republican party dinner and has run as an anti-establishment voice, arguing GOP leadership in Nashville has drifted from grassroots concerns.¹⁰ He earned an 85 percent “Limited Government” alignment score from the Institute for Legislative Analysis in 2023 and has backed voucher expansion, firearms liability protections, and voter district verification legislation.¹¹

Fritts is running on a fraction of the resources of his opponents. His career campaign fundraising totals just over $59,000, and the May 2026 Beacon poll placed him at 5 percent.¹²⁵

Trump Has Not Endorsed

Every serious Republican candidate has courted President Trump, and his refusal to pick one has shaped the primary. On a March 2026 trip to Memphis, Trump told members of the Tennessee congressional delegation aboard Air Force One that he would not endorse Blackburn, saying “John [Rose] has been good to me.”¹³ Witnesses attributed the reluctance partly to Blackburn’s vote to certify the 2020 election results, which Rose voted against.

Trump has still praised Blackburn as “an incredible person” and called her the likely next governor, while previously telling her, “Marsha, don’t. We don’t want to lose you in the Senate.”¹³ Analysts have noted that with both frontrunners branding themselves as Trump candidates, a non-endorsement lets him avoid backing a loser.¹⁴

Money in the Republican Race

Between her campaign account and the affiliated Team Tennessee PAC, Blackburn had raised $7.5 million and held $4.2 million in combined cash by March 2026, drawing from more than 33,000 individual contributors. Her fundraising report set a Tennessee gubernatorial record and crashed the state Registry of Election Finance’s filing system.¹⁵⁹ Unlike Rose, she has not self-funded; her personal financial disclosure lists a net worth between $650,000 and $1.7 million.

Top Team Tennessee donors include Advance Financial ($400,000), Tamara Stephens ($279,000), and Spencer Patton ($250,000), plus six-figure gifts from CoreCivic, Reynolds American, and other individuals. The single largest contribution, $1 million, came from billionaire Jeff Yass, who is also a major national funder of school voucher advocacy through the Club for Growth’s School Freedom Fund.¹⁶ Yass is also a prominent investor in TikTok, a platform Blackburn called a “national security threat” in 2024.

Blackburn has separately used federal and state political action committees, both named “Marsha PAC,” to accept donations above standard contribution limits. Between 2019 and 2025 those PACs sent more than $800,000 to Tennessee Republicans, many of whom have since endorsed her gubernatorial run.⁹

In January 2026, Knoxville Republican activist Gary Loe filed a complaint with the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance alleging Blackburn spent about $3.2 million from her Senate account on consultants, ads, and airfare between December 2024 and August 2025 to lay the groundwork for her gubernatorial run before formally announcing. Campaign manager Abigail Sigler called the complaint “frivolous and wrong” and said the spending was “lawful, routine and unremarkable” under federal law. On March 31, 2026, the state registry rejected the complaint, ruling it lacked jurisdiction because the money involved was federal and no state gubernatorial account had yet been opened.¹⁷ Loe has not said whether he will take the matter to the Federal Election Commission.

The Democratic Field

Six Democrats filed: Jerri Green, Carnita Atwater, Tim Cyr, Martin DePorres Kennedy, Adam “Ditch” Kurtz, and Kevin Lee McCants.¹ The party has not won a statewide race in Tennessee since 2006.¹⁸

Jerri Green

Green, a first-term Memphis city councilmember, former public defender, and former deputy chief of staff to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, announced her campaign in Nashville in July 2025.¹⁹ Her platform includes paid family and medical leave, fully funding public schools, Medicaid expansion for rural residents, reproductive healthcare access, and gun safety measures such as background checks and red flag laws.²⁰

Endorsements include Congressman Steve Cohen, Mayor Harris, several state legislators, Teamsters Local 667, and the National Women’s Political Caucus. On the Memphis Council, she led passage of a 2024 resolution expanding mental health care for police officers who witness traumatic incidents.¹⁹ The May 2026 Beacon poll had her at 14 percent, with 62 percent of Democratic voters undecided; prediction markets gave her roughly a 90 percent chance of winning the primary.⁵

Other Democratic Candidates

Kevin Lee McCants polled at 11 percent and Carnita Atwater at 8 percent in the same Beacon poll.⁵ Atwater is a Memphis community activist who also ran in the 2022 gubernatorial primary. Public information on the platforms and backgrounds of the remaining Democratic candidates is limited.

Independent Candidates

Sixteen independents filed petitions by the March 2026 deadline, including Misam Abidi, Ray Brown, Taylor Hafley, Wendell Jackson, Charles Van Morgan, Eddie Lee Murphy, Lauren Pinkston, Karl Knox Smithson, Robert C. Vick, Santiago Asconape, Trystin Ian Blum, Dean Brewer, David Hatley, Victor L. Scoggin, Dave Seeman, and L. Webb Taylor.¹ Little public information is available on the platforms of most of these candidates.

School Vouchers Are Shaping the Race

The expansion of Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship voucher program has become a defining issue. Governor Lee pushed to grow the program to 40,000 students, which would direct an estimated $303 million in public funds to private schools. The Department of Education reported 58,000 applications for the upcoming school year, and the legislature voted by a three-vote margin to expand the program to 35,000 students.²¹

The Club for Growth’s School Freedom Fund, funded largely by Yass ($27 million of the fund’s $30 million since 2023), spent $4.5 million during the 2024 legislative cycle and a 2025 special election, winning five of the six primaries it targeted. Its president, David McIntosh, said Republicans who oppose vouchers “should expect a very expensive primary that you’ll probably lose.”²² State Representative Jody Barrett, targeted by nearly $800,000 in opposition spending, has criticized the program’s effect on public school funding and its limited transparency around recipient income data. Blackburn supports expansion; Green opposes diverting public money to private schools.

Key Dates for Voters

Early voting for the primary runs from July 17 through August 1, 2026, with primary Election Day on August 6, 2026.²⁰ The general election is November 3, 2026, and the winner will succeed Governor Lee when he leaves office in January 2027.

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Nashville Banner. Governor Tennessee Candidates Marsha Blackburn John Rose
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Marsha Blackburn. Marsha Blackburn for Governor
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WATE. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs To Be Campaign Treasurer in Blackburn’s Run for Governor
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WVLT. Knox County Mayor to Be Marsha Blackburn’s Campaign Treasurer
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Beacon Center of Tennessee. Beacon Poll May 2026 Results
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NewsChannel 9. New Poll: What Tennesseans Think of Federal Cuts, Gov. Lee, Property Tax Ban
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The Tennessean. Tennessee GOP Governor Candidates Share Plans
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John Rose for Governor. News
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Tennessee Lookout. FEC Filings Reveal How Blackburn Laid the Groundwork for Governor Campaign Without Personal Fortune
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Tennessee Bar Association. Monty Fritts Announces Candidacy for Governor
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Institute for Legislative Analysis. Monty Fritts (R) – TN Rep. 32
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FollowTheMoney.org. Monty Fritts – Candidate Details
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Nashville Banner. Donald Trump Marsha Blackburn John Rose Endorsement
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NewsChannel 5. What’s the Impact of Pres. Trump Withholding His Endorsement in the GOP Primary for Tennessee Governor
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Axios Nashville. Sen. Blackburn Sets Fundraising Record for Tennessee Governor
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Tennessee Lookout. Billionaire Jeff Yass Gives $1M to PAC Supporting Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Gubernatorial Campaign
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Knoxville News Sentinel. Tennessee Election Officials Reject Complaint Against Marsha Blackburn
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Tennessee Lookout. Tennessee’s 2026 Candidate Lists Finalized for State and Federal Races
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The Commercial Appeal. Memphis City Councilwoman Jerri Green Enters Tennessee Governor’s Race
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Green for Governor. Jerri Green for Governor
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Chalkbeat Tennessee. Voucher Expansion Backed by Bill Lee Advances in General Assembly
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Tennessee Lookout. As TN Expands Private School Vouchers, Money in Favor Continues to Lead Political Spending