Conventional wisdom is that U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn will be the next governor of Tennessee. While her GOP primary challenger, Congressman John Rose, can match her fundraising with his personal wealth, Blackburn has been a conservative icon in Tennessee since leading the fight against a state income tax, and while not made official, appears to be the preferred candidate of President Trump.
The same “wisdom” indicates that Memphis City Councilwoman Jerri Green will be the Democratic nominee. Green has a base of support in Memphis and is blessed with the considerable campaign management abilities of Alex Hensley. She is running a robust statewide campaign and raising more than the other unknown primary candidates, though she is lagging millions of dollars behind Blackburn and Rose.
If this scenario prevails, it will be historic because the two-party nominees will be women. Yet, also potentially historic is that the two party nominees may not only have to contend with each other but with a serious independent gubernatorial candidate—a candidate who is also a woman. The contender is Lauren Pinkston.
Pinkston is a seventh-generation Tennessean who grew up in McNairy County and today lives in Columbia with her husband Gavin, a family physician, and their four children. Lauren has a doctorate and a master’s from Clemson and a bachelor’s from Freed-Hardeman University. Her experience melds teaching, business, and hands-on elevating of the marginalized around the world. She has served in humanitarian and anti-human trafficking roles in places like Haiti, Peru, Kenya, Laos, Uganda (the birthplace of their adopted daughter), and Thailand. A significant portion of her work involved founding successful businesses to employ and support survivors of human trafficking.
As a candidate, Lauren is likable, knowledgeable, and disarming. Her approach balances factual data with an understanding of how people feel about the struggles their families face. Her message emphasizes reason over extremes and stresses novel ideas like actually listening to teachers about improving education, lowering the cost of living by eliminating the grocery tax, and making childcare affordable, and thinking longer term about public safety by supporting first responders while also expanding mental health services.
While Pinkston’s background is impressive and her approach to issues is refreshing, the question, of course, is whether she can really win.
Perhaps.
There is no doubt without a major party apparatus that winning statewide in Tennessee is difficult. However, success in politics is often about timing, and Pinkston is tapping into the malaise voters are experiencing with the two-party system. More than at any other time in history, people are more likely to think of themselves as independents, and to believe the parties have moved to the fringes.
From a fundraising perspective, neither Pinkston nor Green will catch Blackburn or Rose. But Pinkston is keeping pace with Green so far. Her donations are coming in from across the state, and she is attracting some interest from national independent donors and groups. The goal for her is not to win over a plurality of voters with carefully detailed policy positions. Instead, she needs for disaffected Republicans and Democrats to know there is a viable alternative to the parties’ nominees.
Pinkston looks like a winner. Her campaign is professional. Her logos, graphics, and slogans are crisp and creative. The campaign’s social media is branded, consistent, and relatable. And she has attracted concern from both Democrat and Republican influencers who have accused her of being too liberal or too conservative—the exact place her campaign needs to be.
The Pinkston campaign is likely to benefit from the heavy spending on attack ads by the Rose campaign, that doesn’t have a chance of winning the GOP primary unless they can weaken Blackburn. Of course, the Blackburn campaign will respond in-kind. The negative ads coupled with declining approval for Trump has significant potential to lead some GOP support to the Pinkston column.
Regardless of whether she wins, voters seeking less polarization and pragmatic solutions to the problems we all face can take comfort in the fact they are not alone, and that there are imminently qualified people willing to offer their time and expertise to public service.