Marsha Blackburn opened the Tennessee governor race with an early lead on Aug. 6, putting her ahead of John Rose and Monty Fritts as the first returns came in. As of 7:15 p.m., unofficial vote counts from the Tennessee secretary of state's office showed Blackburn with about 42% of the Republican vote, Rose with about 33% and Fritts with about 23%.
That was the first real measure of where the contest stood on election night, and it came after months in which Blackburn entered with a deep cushion and Rose tried to close the gap. Rose had spent 18 months campaigning across Tennessee and held more than four dozen town halls, while one poll in election week put him within as little as 3.5 percentage points of Blackburn. Even so, the early count showed Blackburn still ahead in the Republican primary for Tennessee governor.
The Democratic side had already settled into a clear lead for Jerri Green, whom the, and NBC News called the winner of that race. As of 7:37 p.m., Green had nearly 70% of the vote. Green, a Memphis City Councilwoman who has led the Shelby County Public Defender's Office since January, spent the campaign traveling across Tennessee to build name recognition.
The split screen matters because Tennessee has not elected a Democrat statewide since 2006, which makes the Republican primary the race that is likely to decide the governor's office. Blackburn, an eight-term congresswoman-turned two-term U.S. senator, also built her campaign around a hard-right message while declining to debate her opponents and skipping public town halls. Rose tried a more traditional ground game, but the first returns suggested that even an aggressive campaign had not yet erased Blackburn's advantage.
What remains unanswered is whether that early lead would survive the full count. If it did, Blackburn would leave election night still in control of the Republican field; if it did not, Rose's months of work would have narrowed the race more than the first returns showed.
