Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout & Canva.
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only. Per The Tennessee Lookout’s republishing guidelines, this article has been edited for writing style & length.
By Adam Friedman [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Independent candidate David Hatley loaned his gubernatorial bid another $5 million in September, bringing his total self-funding to $12 million less than three weeks before the November election.
Hatley’s campaign holds a significant cash advantage over his rivals, as the latest state campaign finance reports due Tuesday showed he entered the final stretch of the campaign with over $6.8 million available to spend.
Despite Hatley’s cash advantage, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee, is the favorite to win the race, as Tennessee hasn’t elected a Democrat to a statewide office in two decades, and never has elected an independent candidate.
Blackburn’s campaign raised $2.1 million in the reporting period spanning from the end of the August primary election to Sept. 30. She has $3.1 million heading into the race’s final weeks.
Jerri Green, the Democrat in the race, raised nearly $1 million this quarter, her largest cash haul in a single reporting period this election. Independent Lauren Pinkston raised around $150,000.
Independent candidate David Hatley loaned his gubernatorial bid another $5 million in September, bringing his total self-funding to $12 million less than three weeks before the November election.
President Donald Trump, at a rally Saturday for Blackburn and other GOP candidates in Tennessee, made an explicit plea telling his supporters, “you have to vote Republican.”
At the same rally, Blackburn said she was the “only conservative” in the governor’s race.
3 Responses
In 2018 too many conservatives made the mistake of voting for Bill Lee because he had lots of money to run pretty ads that turned his having no political record whatsoever into some kind of conservative virtue. Lee was successful, and for eight long years of Lee’s centrist administration I’ve heard these same conservatives lamenting their vote back in 2018 and promising to be wiser the next time Tennessee elected a new governor.
The “next time” is here and once again we have a David Hatley with no political record whatsoever who has $12 million to run ads attempting to turn his having no political record into a conservative virtue. This time the our no-record savior is running against Marsha Blackburn who has a lifetime Heritage conservative score of 88% after a political career of over 25 years. Time for every conservative to head to the polls prepared to cast their vote for Marsha shouting “WE WON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN Nooooooo”.
Your post is spot on, Stuart. My concern is the many new arrivals here in Tennessee and how they will vote. Hatley comes out of nowhere and has some past concerns…too many unknowns. We have no idea who he is. I hate that her site uses WINRED for donations. I don’t want part of my donation going to Mitch McConnell, John Thune, Lisa Murkowski, etc.
Sadly, I still believe Tennessee will be ruined and turned into a Blue State in 10 years. Good luck paying $10,000.00 a year in Property Taxes when the RINOS/Dems are in control.
Yup, hold our noses and vote “for” sold out Marsha.