In the final hours of her primary campaign for governor, now-Republican nominee and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn answered questions on policy when it came to running Tennessee.
The Williamson Scene asked questions from the death penalty to transportation.
Here is what Blackburn had to say.
On the death penalty
The death penalty has been an intense debate in Tennessee as protocols have come into question.
This summer, a state doctor couldn’t find the right veins to kill Tony Carruthers, causing a botched execution. Some Republicans asked Gov. Bill Lee for an internal look at what happened. Lee said he would move forward with executions.
Blackburn said she believes in the death penalty, and didn't address the questions swirling around the Carruthers' failed execution.
“I believe that once you have exhausted your penalty, your appeals-if you've gotten the death sentence, you've exhausted all of your appeals-then it is time to carry out that execution,” Blackburn said to the Williamson Scene. “And whether you do it by lethal injection or the electric chair, that is a decision that you make.”
On Thursday, the state is set to execute Darrel Hines, despite his attorneys citing physical and cognitive issues following a stroke.
On data centers
Data centers have remained a topic of incredible scrutiny in the last year in Middle Tennessee.
That debate took center stage in Nashville as the DC Blox wanted to place a data center next to the Nashville Zoo. Most recently, Metro Council approved a measure to purchase the property through eminent domain.
Blackburn said Tennesseans have to be realistic about data centers and where they are going.
“This is generating data, whether it is going to be AI data, data or telephonic data, and it's got to be stored somewhere,” Blackburn said. “And we do not want it stored in China. Now we know that the Chinese Communist Party would be very happy if we built no data centers in the United States, and because they want to control this so that they can build a virtual community, just like factories of a century ago.”
Rural communities across the mid-state have voted on yearlong moratoriums on the construction of data centers. Blackburn didn’t indicate whether she would be in favor of a statewide policy regulating them. She took the position of local control.
“Communities are going to make decisions about if they want to recruit a data center,” Blackburn said.
On transportation
Tennessee’s roads are in desperate need of expansion and repair.
That is at least according to the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.
The report found in early 2026 that the state has $42.8 billion in transportation and utility needs.
Blackburn said the state hasn’t been meeting the backlog needs.
“If you go back about three governors ago, and you had money that was pulled out of transportation and used to try to stabilize the state budget, so the backlog has grown,” Blackburn said.
She noted that former Gov. Bill Haslam tried to play catch-up, particularly with the IMPROVE Act. That passed the Tennessee legislature in April 2017. Republicans in both the House and Senate told the Williamson Scene they were waiting on a new governor to figure out what direction to take road funding.
“It is going to be up to me to work with federal, state, local, and see if we can't get more of this backlog taken care of,” Blackburn said. “We have to have infrastructure that is going to meet our growth needs.”
On the HOPE lottery scholarship funds
As more people gamble online, fewer are buying traditional lottery tickets.
That means less money is going into the scholarship mechanism designed to help Tennessee students attend college. According to a Think Tennessee study, net lottery proceeds have declined 21.9 percent in the last five years, even as scholarship spending and enrollment have both grown.
The fund is heading toward a deficit.
“I think we are probably going to need to sit down with lottery and with gaming and say, ‘OK, we have these obligations,’” Blackburn said. “Paper tickets are not used as much as they were, and online is used for how do we how do we resolve these deficiencies? So I don't know all the answers to that, but I think what you've seen is a willingness to solve this.”
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