U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) gubernatorial campaign announced Tuesday that it raised more than $5.5 million in just five months, a fundraising pace it says set a record for contributions received by a gubernatorial campaign in any reporting period.
Blackburn’s campaign reported receiving more than 33,000 individual contributions during that period, a volume so large that the campaign said it strained Tennessee’s online campaign-finance reporting system (TNCAMP).
“This announcement is about more than the tremendous financial report Marsha for Governor received. It’s about the groundswell of support her campaign has earned, and as our next Governor, Marsha Blackburn is not going to back the status quo; she’s going to break it. We need someone who is willing to shake up the bureaucracy in Nashville,” Blackburn’s campaign treasurer Glenn Jacobs, who also serves as Knox County mayor, said in a statement.
Blackburn thanked her supporters for the fundraising milestone.
“Thank you to each and every one who has contributed to our campaign be it through your prayers, your time, or your financial support. One person does not win a campaign; it’s all of us working together, and I’m grateful to every single Tennessean who has stood with us over the last five months, as we work to share our conservative vision with Tennesseans from Memphis to Mountain City,” Blackburn said.
“We’re not letting up and continue to work tirelessly to make Tennessee America’s conservative leader,” she added.
Blackburn’s campaign said the number of donations exceeded what the state’s decades-old filing platform was designed to handle, resulting in significant delays and requiring alternative reporting methods.
The campaign’s record-breaking fundraising numbers coincided with technical challenges at the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, which oversees disclosure reports.
In a letter obtained by The Tennessee Star dated Monday, February 2, Jacobs detailed months of communication with bureau officials regarding the campaign’s difficulty entering contribution data into the state’s TNCAMP system.
According to the letter, the system slowed progressively as more contributions were entered, eventually taking more than a minute to save a single entry.
Jacobs said the campaign first raised concerns in September 2025 and hired additional staff to attempt to comply with reporting requirements. As the filing deadline approached and the system continued to lag, bureau officials instructed the campaign to submit its report by the deadline and provide the remaining contribution data in an Excel spreadsheet, which would be treated as the official filing.
“The campaign has consistently and proactively sought to comply with the State’s general reporting requirements and has been transparent with the Bureau about all of the technical challenges it has encountered,” Jacobs wrote, adding that the limitations prevented full disclosure “through no fault of the campaign.”
Bureau Executive Director Bill Young acknowledged the broader issue in a memo sent to all 2026 statewide candidates on Monday.
Young said the TNCAMP system, which has been in use for about 20 years, is nearing the end of its lifecycle and was not designed for the volume of contributions seen in the current election cycle.
He noted that the bureau plans to work with the state’s IT department to “completely” upgrade or replace the system after the 2026 elections.
For now, the bureau has advised campaigns to file on time even if reports are incomplete and to amend them as data entry allows, while separately providing full datasets for public and media requests.
Blackburn’s record-breaking fundraising haul comes as a new poll shows the incumbent U.S. senator to be the overwhelming favorite candidate in the gubernatorial race among Republican primary voters.
The poll, released Monday by the Beacon Center of Tennessee, shows 56 percent of Republican primary voters support Blackburn in the Republican primary for governor, while just 9 percent support U.S. Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) and 7 percent support Tennessee State Representative Monty Fritts (Kingston).
The Republican primary for the 2026 Tennessee gubernatorial election will be held on August 6.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Marsha Blackburn.
As Constitutional and freedom loving Tennesseans it is very important to learn what Senator Blackburn’s position is on the following.
Eventually the democrats will regain the white house (provided that political party still exists) and when that happens they will go scorched earth the Constitution and red states. For example; a total ban on the possession of modern sporting rifles and all other firearms THEY deem a threat to their take-over of America. I want a governor who will tell them to pound sand even if congress passes the legislation.
The entity that controls the democratic party and the deep state will stop at nothing to take total control of America.