“Work a little bit harder.” Tennessee’s women running for governor face challenges men don’t

Three major candidates for Tennessee governor agree on at least one thing — it’s harder campaigning as a woman. 

No woman has served as governor of Tennessee in the 230 years since the inception of the Volunteer State. The first year women running for the office were considered serious competitors was in 2018 when U.S. Rep. Daine Black and former state House Speaker Beth Harwell lost to now-Gov. Bill Lee in the Republican primary. Prior to that, the last woman to undertake a serious gubernatorial campaign was in 1986 when former Public Service Commissioner Jane Eskind ran in the Democratic primary.

Today, with three women competing in the general election — Republican nominee and current U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Democratic nominee and Memphis City Council member Jerri Green, and former Lipscomb University Professor Lauren Pinkston, an independent candidate — it’s nearly certain that this November Tennessee will elect its first. 

Tennessee’s likely position to make history comes at a time when the number of women serving as governor across the country is at a record high. Although still not representative of the country’s demographics, 14 states have women in the governor’s seat, according to Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics. Across the country, women make up 35.1% of nominees for governor, the highest since 2018, according to Rutgers. 

What’s less common is that Tennessee has women nominees for both major parties. Only three other states, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Oregon, have races for governor where the major-party nominees are women, reported the Center for American Women and Politics. 

Green is hopeful that with gender equal in the race, misogyny is not going to be on the ballot. 

“It’s going to be woman versus woman, and people are going to have to make a decision based on our policies and our platforms and our plans for Tennesseans and for Tennessee women in particular,” she said.

Pinkston said women across the top of the ballot create a unique opportunity for Tennesseans to vote based on ideas rather than the biases they might have surrounding someone’s race or gender. 

Despite this, Pinkston said as a woman running for office, the level of scrutiny is higher than for a man. Blackburn said she had to prove herself as a woman in politics, and Green said it’s more difficult to raise money as a woman and to deal with constant nasty comments and threats.

Marsha Blackburn: Used to being a ‘first’

On the first day of early voting in Tennessee, a meet-and-greet hosted by the Hamilton County Republican Women’s Club at Morning Pointe Senior Center in Chattanooga is sandwiched between Blackburn voting in the election that could propel her to the governor’s office and an evening fundraising event with her closest supporters in the city. 

Despite an absence of reliable polling data, Blackburn, with nearly 30 years of electoral experience, is considered by many politicos to be the favorite in the race. 

After decades spent serving in public office, Blackburn is accustomed to being the first. She became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee in 2018. She still holds the seat and has said if she becomes governor, she will wait to vacate the seat and choose an interim appointee rather than step down earlier for Gov. Bill Lee to choose.

In 1989, Blackburn became the first woman to hold the position of chair of the Williamson County GOP, one of the few female chairs in the state at the time. Ten years later, in Blackburn’s first year as a Tennessee State Senator, a total of 18 women served in the 132-person Tennessee legislature, among the lowest levels of female representation in statehouses across the country. 

Blackburn said she was the only Republican woman in the state Senate when she was elected.

“Female leaders have to work a little bit harder to secure their place,” Blackburn said in an interview. “But we have been so fortunate to break ceilings and open doors of opportunity for women, and I’ve done that all of my career.”

Blackburn pointed to the few women in the state senate in the late 90s compared to the current U.S. Senate, which has more women serving than ever before, when asked if she thinks her experience as a woman in office has changed over the years.

“There is a conservative majority, and conservative women have stepped up, and they have served well. That’s good. That opens doors of opportunity for other women,” Blackburn said when asked about the environment for women in Congress today compared to the state senate.  

In Blackburn’s 2020 book, “The Mind of a Conservative Woman: Seeking the Best for Family,” and Country, she writes about experiencing bias as a woman. She details being underestimated as a competitive candidate because of her petite stature and blond hair and that she has received threats of rape, violence against her family and herself.

An investigation published by the New York Times earlier this month directly quotes a death threat that names Blackburn. She declined to comment on it.

If elected, she wants to continue opening doors for women. She said she hears from women all across the state about what they want. 

“What they want is more opportunities, not only for themselves, but for others in the community. They want higher wages, so that they can be more productive in their work; they want to make certain that opportunity is there,” Blackburn said. “That’s why I say regularly, one of my goals is to be sure we are the state of opportunity, and I want us to be known as that, so that people know when they come here they can go live their version of the American dream.” 

Blackburn said creating opportunity from the governor’s seat means fostering the environment for job growth and then government getting out of the way and letting the private sector do its part. 

“It also means opening doors and making certain that women know they can apply for different positions and that it’s going to be a level playing field.”

Blackburn said there are plenty of laws on the books when asked if, as governor, there was policy or legislation she would push for to ensure women applying to jobs in Tennessee know there is a level playing field. 

“I think women just want to know if they’re going to get a fair shake,” Blackburn said. “And I want them to know they are going to get that fair shake.”

Her apprehension to push for laws or implement practices as governor that regulate women in the workplace is consistent with her previous votes in Congress.

Historically, Blackburn has voted against laws that require equal pay for women. Most notably in 2009, as a member of the U.S. House, she voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which aimed to make it easier for women to file employment discrimination cases based on pay differences between their male counterparts, and the Paycheck Fairness Act intended to prevent sex discrimination in the workplace.

Blackburn has previously said that she voted no because the laws are unnecessary government overreach and increase litigation rather than empower women.

In 2013, Blackburn voted against the bipartisan version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization that passed Congress. Blackburn said expanded protections under the act to LGBTQ+, without full legal status and certain Native Americans diluted the aim.  

She pointed to the Childcare for American Families Act as an example of a bill that helps women.  She championed the bipartisan bill that updates the federal tax code to aid businesses in offsetting the cost of providing childcare for their workers. The bill was first introduced in 2024 and passed with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025

“That’s one of the biggest issues women have: having the ability to have somebody that they can rely on to provide that childcare for their precious little ones,” Blackburn said. “And securing that has opened some doors for people for consistent employment and for moms to be able to return to the workforce.”

When campaigning, Blackburn has often said she is a mother and grandmother first and she doesn’t miss cooking Sunday lunch for all of her family. She said someone in the family will text her to inquire about the menu if they haven’t heard from her by noon on Saturday.

Jerri Green: “You govern differently”

Green, the Democratic nominee for governor, said she realized women face a ton of glass ceilings at an early age. 

More precisely, it was at eight or nine, Green said, when she dressed up as Sandra Day O’Connor for Halloween.

“I thought she was the coolest,” Green recalls thinking about the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. “I guess I was just excited to see other women come before me do great things. There were definitely women role models in my life that were taking big risks, that were going into male-dominated fields, and you know, probably somewhere along the line, young Jerri picked up on that, and it’s now, I guess, manifesting here 48 years later.”

Green is running to represent working families, motivated to throw her hat in the ring by her three children, whom she refers to as her special interests. Green wants to expand paid family and medical leave, deliver affordable child care, and provide a real living wage. Her tagline is “One Tough Mother.”

“The truth of the matter is, a lot of the skills of motherhood really do translate well into being a part of either an executive administration or the legislative branch,” Green said. “It’s a really diverse set of skill sets that you get, whether it’s multitasking or dealing with a lot of different personalities, all of those things that you end up doing as a mother translate well into government.”

Women across the state are fired up, Green said. 

“They’re the ones that go to the grocery stores and fill up the gas tanks, and they see that the prices are too high. They’re the ones that, you know, balance the utility bills and the medical bills. They’re the ones that are in the sandwich generation of trying to feed their 16-year-old and take care of their 70-year-old parent, you know, without any good paid parental leave or good wages, and I know that women in particular are really ready for change,” she said.

Green said women running for office face challenges men are less likely to.

There is a barrage of nasty and sexual insults, sometimes in the comments, sometimes in the DMs,” Green said.  “I mean, I know I’ve gotten violent rape threats, but not even to that degree. I mean, I’ve experienced it. I know Marsha has. People are always commenting on our looks in a way that they don’t do that to Bernie (Sanders) or to Mitch McConnell. You know what I mean? But it seems to be fair game if you’re a woman.”

When Green was elected to Memphis City Council in 2023, six other women won their races,  ushering in the first female majority in 200 years.

Since then, the council has increased pre-k funding, passed paid parental leave for the first time in the city’s history, invested in youth mental health services, created a nursing suite in the council chambers, and moved the council’s meeting time so it was not during carpool line time so more mothers could participate, Green said.

Green said, “I just think when you are a parent, you are a mother, you govern differently. When you’re a woman, you govern differently, and it’s past time that we have that perspective in Nashville as well.”

One day, Green said, she hopes that there are so many women in places and seats of power that it doesn’t need an article or remember a time there weren’t. 

Lauren Pinkston: “No greater threat to unchecked power than a free woman with a conscience”

Pinkston grew up in a very conservative rural Tennessee culture, a part of a conservative church culture.

 “In my worldview and in the worldview that I was raised in, women were second class. We were trained to be subordinate,” Pinkston said.

As an independent candidate for governor, Pinkston pushes back against the two-party system and ran on the promise of offering a third option for those dissatisfied with both major parties. 

The same sentiment of pushing back exists when Pinkston talks about challenging her own faith tradition and what it taught her about women. 

“We were trained to believe that women couldn’t be trusted in leadership, and I had to do a lot of my own work to try to understand that my role and my duty to my community is to be my full self, regardless of my gender,” Pinkston said.

However, Pinkston’s belief that she can be her full self regardless of gender is not one held by everyone. While discussing the campaign, she describes defending the version of herself today, a candidate for Tennessee governor, against critics. 

Like Greene, Pinkston said her dedication as a mother has been questioned. Pinkston said she has been accused of not loving her children because she chooses to work outside the home or has been told that her role is in the kitchen.

“I am very, very clear that I can do both things at the same time. I’m a pretty incredible cook, actually, and I also am pretty intelligent when it comes to policy work,” she said. “Right, like those two things can coexist at the same time.”

“My husband is a rock and has been a steady force of support over the past year of campaigning,” Pinkston said, her voice breaking as she described threats she has received during the campaign. 

“I am so incredibly proud of the fact that after running so hard for an entire year, my marriage is stronger even than it was a year ago, and that my family is stronger even than it was a year ago,” she said.

David Hatley, the other major independent gubernatorial candidate, has self-funded more than 30 times the amount Pinkston has raised.

Despite the long shot, Pinkston has said she would not back down and refused a request by Green last month to drop out of the race.

Pinkston highlighted her policy plan to add 50,000 childcare slots in her first four years as governor to enable women to contribute to the workplace. 

“We have a 90,000 childcare slot deficit in the state of Tennessee, and so we have a community and we have a society that is saying, ‘Go to college, women, go to college,’ and now women outnumber men in their college registration and their college attendance,” Pinkston said. “But once women get out of college and they start their careers, we don’t have any supports that are there for them.”

Pinkston quotes a phrase she coined and printed onto campaign t-shirts: ‘There is no greater threat to unchecked power than a free woman with a conscience.’

She said when she sees women wearing a shirt emblazoned with the phrase, it’s clear it resonates with them too. 

“Women have been sitting in the middle of this political divide, bridging gaps at dinner tables for so long, and we stand on the shoulders of women who have done this for centuries.”