NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Governor-elect Marsha Blackburn put lowering the cost of living at the center of her early agenda Wednesday, joining Gov. Bill Lee at the State Capitol a day after she won Tennessee’s closest governor’s race in two decades.
Blackburn finished with about 45.5% of the vote, roughly three points ahead of Democrat Jerri Green. At a morning news conference she cast Tennessee as a conservative standout after a national midterm night that flipped several Republican-held governorships elsewhere.
Lee welcomed her for the transition and named Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter to lead the handoff. Blackburn said her team will start looking for near-term ways to ease household costs even before she takes the oath in January.
Ideas already on the table include repealing the state’s 4% grocery sales tax, curbing rising property taxes, and steps on child care and housing affordability. Affordability was not the headline theme of her campaign, which leaned heavily on a hard line toward China, but it dominated her first day as governor-elect.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton said Republicans see a path to cut the grocery tax on food staples and to build on last year’s workforce-housing work, even after Democrats flipped six House seats. Minority Leader John Jay Clemmons said families still face high prices, strained roads and under-resourced schools and pressed the majority to prove it will act.
Blackburn will keep her U.S. Senate seat until she is sworn in as governor, then appoint a temporary successor who would face voters in a special election in the fall of 2027. She did not name a shortlist.
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