The Too-Early Short List for Tennessee’s Next Governor

A term-limited Gov. Bill Lee will leave office in 2026 after eight years as Tennessee’s chief executive. In that time, Republicans have held onto their consolidated power in the state legislature and in Tennessee’s congressional delegation, where just one Democrat — U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis — represents Tennesseans in Washington, D.C. Lee has brought Tennessee into lockstep with the national GOP on issues like private school vouchers while criminalizing immigration and abortion.

The state has solidly voted Republican in the past several elections. Tennesseans gave Lee 64.9 percent of the vote in 2022. Trump won Tennessee with 64.2 percent of the vote in 2024. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn won her second term in the U.S. Senate in November with 63.8 percent. Democrats have few prospective candidates and no clear blueprint for a competitive campaign.

With a little more than 20 months between now and the 2026 gubernatorial election, here’s a quick look at eight names that could end up in the mix — some more hypothetical than others.

U.S. Rep. John Rose

Cookeville businessman John Rose broke into state politics in the early 2000s as Tennessee’s agricultural commissioner under Republican Gov. Don Sundquist. While Sundquist’s second term ended in a corruption investigation over no-bid state contracts, Rose hopped back to his lucrative software hustle while keeping a foot in the statewide farming bureaucracy. He has Future Farmers of America to thank for his marriage: At 42, Rose was an FFA board member while Chelsea, his now-wife, was the 17-year-old FFA state president. They were engaged four years later. Most importantly, Rose has publicly said he will run for governor and has the money to do it: Rose reported assets over $50 million in his congressional disclosures and has historically funded his tenure as a congressman, representing Tennessee’s 6th District since 2019. Money, CEO bona fides, farming photo opps — Lee brewed that same stew in the 2018 Republican primary. By default, Rose remains the front-runner.

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn

If she actually wants to return to the Tennessee Capitol, the state’s popular senior senator would immediately be the favorite. Blackburn has curried Trump’s favor and blasted her name, image and likeness to Tennesseans via Fox News and campaign ads since winning her first Senate term in 2018. Before then, she racked up terms as a U.S. representative from her perch in Brentwood, the state’s wealthy and well-connected political core. Before that, the longtime Republican led a successful effort to kill a proposed state income tax as a state senator. She’s reported to have started exploring and polling for a 2026 governor’s run, but has yet to formalize her next political move. (Blackburn’s colleague in the Senate, Bill Hagerty, recently confirmed his plans to run for reelection, quashing rumors that he was considering a gubernatorial run.)

Matt Walsh

As a right-wing podcaster and media provocateur, Matt Walsh has demonstrated an insatiable appetite for attention. Keep feeding it, as he has at public anti-trans rallies and in the Daily Wire mediasphere, and it gets hungrier. Scene columnist Betsy Phillips laid out Walsh’s frantic attention-seeking in a recent column, speculating, quite reasonably, that he may follow media stars like Robby Starbuck, Nicholas Kristof, Cenk Uygur and Donald Trump into the political jungle. Most of them fail.

Mayor Glenn Jacobs

Quick submission did not make Kane, Glenn Jacobs’ champion WWE persona, the most feared matchup in the ring. But it may be the tactful political move for the Knox County mayor, who endorsed Blackburn’s still-hypothetical (at press time) gubernatorial bid in January after he spent months maneuvering for his own statewide prospects. As Kane, Jacobs is an international star; as Knox County mayor, he’s still a relative political newcomer low in the GOP pecking order. Such deference should serve his own bid for governor if Blackburn doesn’t run, and positions him well to rise through the state party’s ranks if she does — perhaps as her successor in the Senate.

Speaker Cameron Sexton

Jumping to the governor’s mansion would be the natural next move for state House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who has presided over the Tennessee House of Representatives since 2019. As speaker, the Republican has seen the ins and outs of policymaking and kept his reputation only slightly tarnished. While nominally representing Crossville, Sexton maintains a Nashville residence, a potential violation of his office but a sign that he likes the Music City lifestyle. Unlike his peers on this list, Sexton lacks both the personal wealth to self-finance a campaign and a major hometown political base from which to fundraise.

Tre Hargett

Hargett’s seemingly random speaking engagements and public appearances would suddenly make sense if he decided to run for higher office. As Tennessee’s secretary of state, Hargett gets his name on lots of documents and has drummed up lots of reasons to talk to crowds, mainly touting Tennessee’s election security and cheerleading the Republican party. Sources say he’s already floated the idea with colleagues within the state government.

State Rep. John Ray Clemmons

Somehow, Democratic state Rep. Clemmons keeps showing up to the Capitol with well-reasoned policy arguments and an affable demeanor that may even border on chipper. Like his party colleagues in the statehouse, the Democratic Caucus chair is disrespected, ignored, dismissed and disregarded by the ruling party nearly every time he tries to legislate. Fluent in most issues, from the budget to education to immigration, Clemmons brings an agile legal acumen and earnest appeals to committee and floor debates, suggesting he may have the psychological endurance for a statewide campaign.

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper

Nashville’s former 5th Congressional District representative always teases that his career isn’t over. Against him, he has the daunting data and a demonstrated aversion to electoral defeat. Yet Cooper may be the only Democrat in the state with the name recognition and fundraising potential to run a formidable campaign. It doesn’t hurt that Cooper spent his career distinguishing himself from the mainstream Democratic Party, or that his father, Prentice Cooper, held the governor’s office during World War II.