NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn won her reelection bid Tuesday, securing a victory in GOP-dominant Tennessee after largely avoiding her Democratic opponent.
Blackburn defeated state Rep. Gloria Johnson, who shot to fame last year after she was nearly expelled from the Statehouse for her participation in a gun control protest from the House floor. Johnson had hoped the national attention on her gun control reform efforts and support for reproductive rights would appeal to Tennessee voters used to electing Republicans in statewide positions.
But Blackburn easily snagged another win even though she ran a much more subdued campaign compared to the grueling victory she secured six years ago.
“Keeping that American dream alive is very important,” Blackburn said during her victory speech on Tuesday. “This seat does not belong to an individual but it belongs to the people of Tennessee.”
Blackburn added that Johnson had called to concede moments prior, noting that her Democratic opponent six years ago — former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen — never did.
“I appreciate that she did that," Blackburn said.
Johnson will remain in state politics. The Democrat was unopposed while separately running for reelection for her representative seat in eastern Tennessee.
“Our journey does not stop here. Our fight for a better Tennessee continues,” Johnson posted on social media. “Together, I know we’ll continue to fight for this state we call home.”
First elected to the U.S. House in 2002, Blackburn aligned with the tea party movement and regularly appeared on Fox News. Before that, she made a name for herself as a state lawmaker who helped lead the revolt against a proposed Tennessee income tax in the early 2000s.
Her 2018 Senate victory marked a rightward shift from Tennessee GOP senators who had come before her and ushered in a more conservative wave of candidates eager to align with former President Donald Trump.
Trump threw his support behind Blackburn early in her reelection bid, a coveted endorsement in a state where Trump beat Democrat Joe Biden by 23 percentage points in 2020. Blackburn had initially announced that she wouldn’t vote to certify Biden’s victory but later changed her mind after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Since then, she helped craft the GOP’s policy platform for Trump and touted his candidacy in a Republican National Convention speech. One of her first TV ads highlighted her opposition to transgender athletes in women’s sports, a stance now part of that platform.
Blackburn raised eyebrows when she recorded a video message declaring the U.S. Supreme Court’s Griswold decision — the landmark 1965 case that gave married couples the right to birth control — as “constitutionally unsound” shortly after the court revoked the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. To date, Blackburn has not clarified what she meant.
Blackburn also attracted attention in 2022 when she asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court if she could define “the word ‘woman,’” and criticized transgender women participating in female sports.
Johnson, 62, has been a critic of Blackburn’s policy positions, arguing that most Tennesseans want “common sense gun legislation” and better access to reproductive care.
While on the campaign trail, Johnson also shared her own story of needing an abortion to save her life in light of Tennessee enacting a sweeping abortion ban that includes only a handful of narrow exemptions. Johnson has stressed that she likely would not have been able to make that same choice under the state’s current ban.
Blackburn, 72, has opposed gun control measures throughout her political career. After repeatedly deflecting questions about whether she supports a national ban on abortion as she ran for reelection, Blackburn told WTVF-TV last month that she would oppose a federal ban, as well as any “federal government overreach that would interfere with that decision.”
Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, she repeatedly voted to advance a bill that would have banned abortion at 20 weeks.
Blackburn’s 2018 win marked the first time a woman had been elected in Tennessee as a U.S. senator.
Kimberlee Kruesi, The Associated Press
