Marsha Blackburn wants to be Tennessee's next governor. What she does not want, apparently, is to stand on a stage and answer questions in front of the people who would elect her.

In early July, a public forum was held for the Republican candidates for governor. Two of them — U.S. Rep. John Rose and state Rep. Monty Fritts — showed up and took questions from the crowd. Blackburn was a no-show. When a reporter later asked her whether Tennesseans deserve to see the candidates debate, she didn't just dodge the question — she claimed a record of openness that, when checked, turned out not to exist.

The claim that fell apart

Asked whether voters deserve to hear the candidates debate, Blackburn said: "With the Republicans, we have had lots of forums across the state and where all three of us have been on stage." She added that people "have been able to see us on stage, then they've been able to hear from us."

That sounds reassuring. It also isn't true.

WSMV went and checked. Reporters asked her own Republican opponents whether these "lots of forums" had happened. Both John Rose and Monty Fritts said they had not taken part in any public forums with Blackburn since she launched her run for governor. The only events they described were private, ticketed gatherings — tickets ran more than $100 — where each candidate delivered about 10 minutes of scripted remarks. No questions. No back-and-forth. No debate. The one town hall WSMV could identify was a telephone town hall in January 2026 about winter storm recovery, with no opponents anywhere near it.

When WSMV asked Blackburn's campaign to back up the forums she'd described, the campaign didn't respond.

So the picture is this: she skipped the real forum, then described ticketed speeches as "lots of forums" to explain why she didn't need to do more. That's not a scheduling problem. Rose's word for it is "not a truthful statement."

"That wasn't an answer"

Blackburn was just as slippery about debating the eventual Democratic nominee. Pressed on whether she'd agree to a debate, she offered: "We look forward to continue to talk to Tennesseans..." The interviewer pointed out that this wasn't an answer to the question. Blackburn disagreed — and still didn't answer.

Her opponent John Rose has been hammering exactly this point. "We haven't been in a single forum where all three of us have been on stage," he told Action News 5. "We've been at events where each of us has spoken to an audience, but in no case have we been in what I would call a forum." When your own primary rivals and the local press are all describing the same behavior, it stops being spin and starts being a pattern.

An eight-year habit of hiding

None of this is new. Ducking voters is how Marsha Blackburn has operated for years.

She hasn't held an in-person town hall since 2017. Instead she holds telephone town halls — no room full of constituents looking her in the eye. In March 2025, when Tennesseans got tired of waiting and organized their own town halls in Knoxville and Hixson, they invited her. She didn't come. Hundreds of people showed up in Hixson anyway — and ended up directing their questions to a cardboard cutout of the senator, because the real one wouldn't face them.

Now she's asking those same people to make her governor — while refusing to debate the candidates running against her and refusing to answer whether she ever will.

Why the hiding matters

It's easy to shrug at "she skipped a forum." But think about what a forum or a debate actually is. It's the one setting a politician can't fully control. Nobody hands them the questions. Voters get to see how a candidate handles a challenge, whether they actually understand the issues, and whether their answers hold up when someone pushes back.

Blackburn would rather you not see that. She'd rather deliver 10 minutes of scripted lines at a $100-plus-a-ticket event than stand on an open stage. And her Senate record helps explain why she'd want to avoid the questions. This is the senator who voted to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the nation's health agencies, who carries a 0% score from the League of Conservation Voters, and who announced she would reject the 2020 election results days before January 6, only reversing course after the Capitol was stormed. Those are things you'd have to defend at a debate. It's a lot safer to stay off the stage.

A candidate who's proud of her record wants to talk about it in public. A candidate who counts ticketed speeches as forums, skips the forums that do happen, and won't say whether she'll ever debate is telling you something — just not in words.

Tennesseans deserve better than a governor who hides from them and then tells a story her own rivals call untrue.

Source

This post is based on WSMV's July 9, 2026 fact-check, "Gubernatorial candidate Marsha Blackburn dodged questions of debate, claiming she's had 'lots of forums with Republicans.' We asked, they say otherwise," with additional reporting from WBIR and the Chattanooga Times Free Press.