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Tennessee voters to choose gubernatorial nominees, and more races to watch today

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Tennessee voters are heading to the polls Thursday to choose their gubernatorial nominees, as well as candidates in newly redrawn congressional districts. 

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn is running for governor, with two primary challengers: U.S. Rep. John Rose and state Rep. Monty Fritts. Five Democrats are vying for a place on the November ballot to take on the winner in the deep-red state.

After the Supreme Court decision earlier this year that narrowed portions of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Tennessee lawmakers hastily redrew their congressional districts to dissolve a majority-Black district in the Memphis area and make all nine districts favor Republicans.

Here are the races to watch: 

Tennessee governor’s race

Blackburn, first elected to the Senate in 2018, announced last year that she would be running for governor with a video filled with images of her with President Trump as she declared, “Trump is back, America is blessed and Tennessee better than ever.”

Rose, who currently represents the 6th District, was already in the race. Fritts joined the race in September 2025. 

Although Mr. Trump has not endorsed a candidate in the race, all three have stressed MAGA bona fides as they seek the governor’s mansion in a state that Mr. Trump won by almost 30 points in 2024. Rose has attacked Blackburn for voting to certify the president’s 2020 election loss, while Blackburn has vowed to support Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown “100%.”

Fritts, who remains more of a fringe candidate, last week vowed to ban non-Christian religions, insisting that the First Amendment only applies to Congress.  

Blackburn declined in July to participate in any debates, and Rose backed out when it was set to be only him and Fritts on stage. 

Republican Bill Lee, the current governor, is prevented from running again due to term limits. If Blackburn wins on Thursday and is elected in November, she would be the first woman to serve as governor of Tennessee. 

There are five Democrats vying to be on the ballot in November: Memphis City Councilwoman Jerri Green, activist Carnita Atwater, farmer Tim Cyr, musician Adam “Ditch” Kurtz and pastor Kevin Lee McCants. 

Tennessee’s last Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, left office in 2011. 

Tennessee House races

In the drastically redrawn 5th District, Rep. Andy Ogles, a close ally of Mr. Trump, is facing a primary challenger, state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher. Hatcher has been endorsed by Lee, as well as former Gov. Bill Haslam. Mr. Trump has backed Ogles, even holding a tele-rally for him in July. 

The Cook Political Report rates the district as “Solid R,” but the Democrats’ campaign arm has insisted the district could be in play. 

Ogles has been criticized for social media posts saying Muslims “don’t belong in American society” and that homosexuality “has no place in America.” 

There are five Democrats running to take on the winner of the GOP primary, with the Democrats’ campaign arm backing Chaz Molder, the mayor of Columbia. 

And in another district, Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who has represented the Memphis area since 2007, opted not to run for reelection after his district boundaries were changed to be more friendly to Republicans. 

The district is now considered “Solid Republican” by Cook Political Report. Four Republicans are running for the GOP nomination and four Democrats are seeking the Democratic nomination. 

JD Vance and the Trump team keep moving the goalposts on Iran

By CNN
(CNN) — One of the Trump administration’s biggest problems in extracting itself from the Iran war is the list of very absolutist goals that President Donald Trump and his team laid out.The goals have included complete Iranian surrender, regime change, Iran never getting a nuclear weapon and ending Tehran’s support for its Middle East proxy groups like Hezbollah.As the war — now in its sixth month — has dragged on, this list of goals has conspicuously shifted and been pared back. And Vice President JD Vance appears to have pared it back recently in a remarkable way, offering the latest indication that the administration might be preparing to settle for less — maybe even a lot less.Appearing on Fox News on Thursday, Vance was asked how the war might end. And he laid out two goals.“It’s ensuring that the Gulf countries continue to send oil and gas to the world economy so that we have energy price stability,” he said, adding: “That’s goal number one: Keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country.“And then, obviously, goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.”This is not the administration’s old list of goals — and the order Vance placed them in is striking.When asked about Vance’s comments on Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained that “both goals are equally as important to the president.”The administration has almost always characterized Iran never getting a nuclear weapon as the overriding concern.And even if the goals are truly equal in the administration’s mind, including oil and gas prices at all — and not other items — is a notable shift.In fact, Trump explicitly rejected this as a goal back in May. When asked if he considered Americans’ financial situation when trying to resolve the war, Trump responded, “Not even a little bit.” He signaled that denuclearization was so important that he didn’t factor in anything else.(Trump echoed that line on Friday, saying he would “never apologize” for Americans paying a little more for gas, given the stakes in Iran.)I wrote in March about how the administration frequently listed four goals for the war — but how the four goals frequently differed depending upon who was speaking.Some lists included ending funding for proxy groups, for example, while others did not. Some mentioned destroying Iran’s missile infrastructure, while others omitted that. Some mentioned getting rid of Iran’s air force and navy, but others only mentioned the navy.It was like the administration was workshopping the list in real time.But the key point here is that none of those lists included keeping oil and gas prices low in the United States.And given the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war started, that particular goal could just be read as a return to the pre-war status quo — with denuclearization being the only goal that would represent a new achievement.Indeed, the new emphasis on low gas prices from some in the administration seems like the latest sign of relaxing the goals to prepare for a conclusion to the war that comes up well shy of Trump’s initial aims.By May, it became clear the administration was no longer going to emphasize certain goals.By June, the Trump administration entered into a memorandum of understanding with Iran that barely mentioned previously central US goals.And for the last two-plus months, Trump has been saying things that sounded a lot like he might scale back his nuclear demands.While the administration previously emphasized Iran turning over its enriched uranium, Trump’s spoken about how perhaps enough damage was done to its nuclear program and its nuclear materials are buried too far underground to be accessed. The president has also talked about how the US government could simply monitor from space to make sure Iran didn’t try to retrieve them.He’s even claimed that Iran was already denuclearized.In other words, Trump sounded a lot like a guy who knew he might not be able to cow Iran into accepting a really restrictive nuclear deal.His administration talking about energy prices as “goal number one” — even if Trump isn’t — would fit neatly with this progression away from the hard-and-fast goals that the administration set out to achieve.If a return to the pre-war status quo really is “goal number one” right now, that says a lot about how little this war has accomplished.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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