Marsha Blackburn

Mary Marsha Blackburn (née Wedgeworth; born June 6, 1952) is an American politician and businesswoman serving as the senior United States senator from Tennessee. Blackburn was first elected to the Senate in 2018. A member of the Republican Party, Blackburn was a state senator from 1999 to 2003 and represented Tennessee's 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2003 to 2019, during which time the National Journal rated her among the House's most conservative members.

A supporter of the Tea Party movement, Blackburn is a staunch ally of President Donald Trump. She opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, cannabis (medical and recreational), and the Affordable Care Act. On November 6, 2018, Blackburn became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, defeating Democratic former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen. Blackburn became the state's senior senator in January 2021 upon the retirement of Senator Lamar Alexander. Upon the retirement of Congressman Jim Cooper in 2023, she became the dean of Tennessee's congressional delegation. She won reelection to a second Senate term in 2024 against Democratic nominee Gloria Johnson.

Blackburn is the Republican nominee in the 2026 Tennessee gubernatorial election and faces Memphis city councilor Jerri Green.

Marsha Wedgeworth was born in Laurel, Mississippi, to Mary Jo (Morgan) and Hilman Wedgeworth, who worked in sales and management. She placed fourth during a beauty pageant in high school.

Blackburn attended Mississippi State University on a 4-H scholarship, earning a Bachelor of Science in home economics in 1974. Blackburn was elected both as secretary and president of the Associated Women Students at Mississippi State University.

In 1973, before graduating from college, Blackburn worked as a sales manager for the Times Mirror Company. From 1975 to 1978, she worked in the Castner Knott Division of Mercantile Stores, Inc. In 1978, she became the owner of Marketing Strategies, a promotion-event management firm. As of 2016, Blackburn continued to run this business.

Blackburn was a founding member of the Williamson County Young Republicans. She was chair of the Williamson County Republican Party from 1989 to 1991. In 1992, she ran for Congress in Tennessee's 6th congressional district, losing to incumbent Bart Gordon, and was a delegate to the 1992 Republican National Convention. In 1995, Blackburn was appointed executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission by Tennessee governor Don Sundquist, holding that post through 1997.

Blackburn was a member of the Tennessee Senate from 1999 to 2003, and rose to be minority whip. In 2000, she took part in the effort to prevent the passage of a state income tax bill.

Redistricting after the 2000 census moved Blackburn's home from the 6th district to the 7th district, and created a gerrymandered district that stretched for 200 miles from eastern Memphis to southwest Nashville. In 2002, Blackburn ran in the Republican primary for this congressional seat. Of the four main candidates, she was the only one from the Nashville suburbs. The other three (Mark Norris, David Kustoff, and Brent Taylor) were all from Memphis or its suburbs. Blackburn was endorsed by the conservative political advocacy group Club for Growth. The three Memphians split the vote in that area, and Blackburn won the primary by nearly 20 percentage points.

In the general election, Blackburn defeated Democratic nominee Tim Barron with 70% of the vote. She was the fourth woman elected to Congress from Tennessee, and the first woman elected to Congress from Tennessee who did not succeed her husband. She was reelected seven times.

Blackburn served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2019. During her House tenure, the National Journal rated her among the House's most conservative members.

In November 2007, Blackburn unsuccessfully ran for Republican conference chair. She was a senior advisor on Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, before resigning her position in the Romney campaign and endorsing Fred Thompson for president. Blackburn was an assistant whip in Congress from 2003 to 2005, as well as deputy whip from 2005.

Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, vice-chair

In October 2017, Blackburn announced her candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Bob Corker. In her announcement, she said House Republicans were frustrated with Senate Republicans, who they believed acted like Democrats on important issues, including Obamacare. In the announcement, Blackburn called herself a "politically incorrect" "hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative" and said with pride that liberals had called her a "wingnut". She dismissed compromise and bipartisanship, saying, "No compromise, no apologies." She also said she carried a gun in her purse. On August 2, Blackburn won the Republican primary with 84.48% of the vote.

Blackburn largely backed President Donald Trump's policies, including a U.S.–Mexico border wall, and shared his opinion of National Football League national anthem protests. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence endorsed her. During the campaign, Blackburn pledged to support Trump's agenda and suggested that Democratic nominee Phil Bredesen would not.

For most of the campaign, polls showed the two candidates nearly tied. But after Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Blackburn pulled ahead. Some believe the hearings mobilized Republican voters in the state, even though Democrats won the House. Blackburn won the election with 54.7% of the vote to Bredesen's 43.9%, an unexpectedly large margin. She carried all but three counties in the state (Davidson, Shelby, and Haywood), the most counties ever won in an open Senate election in Tennessee.

At 66, Blackburn is the oldest elected freshman U.S. senator from Tennessee. She was the oldest person to become a freshman U.S. senator in the 21st century until John Hickenlooper of Colorado surpassed her at age 68 in 2020.

[[File:2024 United States Senate election in Tennessee results map by county.svg|alt=Final results by county|thumb|350x350px|Final results by county in 2024:

On August 6, 2025, Blackburn announced that she would run for governor of Tennessee in 2026. On August 6, 2026, she became the first woman to win the Republican nomination for governor of Tennessee. If elected, she will be Tennessee's first female governor and, at age 74, its oldest elected governor.

Blackburn is a Tea Party Republican. She has been called staunchly conservative, and has sometimes attended functions of, and met with leaders of, far-right groups. She has called herself "a hard-core, card-carrying Tennessee conservative."

GovTrack estimated Blackburn to be the most ideologically conservative member of the Senate in the 2019 legislative year. In 2024, Blackburn served as chairperson for the Republican National Committee's official party platform.

Blackburn staunchly opposes abortion and sought to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 2013, she was chosen to manage debate on a bill promoted by House Republicans that would have prohibited abortions after 22 weeks' gestation, with limited exceptions for rape or incest. She replaced the bill's prior sponsor, U.S. Representative Trent Franks, after Franks made controversial and dubious statements.

In 2015, Blackburn led a panel that investigated the Planned Parenthood undercover video controversy, in which anti-abortion activists published a video purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illicitly sold fetal tissue. Subsequent investigations into Planned Parenthood found no evidence of fetal tissue sales or of wrongdoing, but in 2017, when Blackburn announced that she was running for Senate, she ran a controversial advertisement saying that she "fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts". In 2015, Blackburn claimed that 94% of Planned Parenthood's business revolves around abortion services, which FactCheck.org found to be misleading and that "no one can say for sure what the percentage is".

In March 2016, Blackburn chaired the Republican-led Select Investigative Panel, a committee convened to "explore the ethical implications of using fetal tissue in biomedical research". Democrats on the panel characterized the probe as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Marsha married Chuck Blackburn in 1974. They live in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville in Williamson County, and have two children. She is a Presbyterian and a member of Christ Presbyterian Church.

Blackburn is a member of The C Street Family, a prayer group that includes members of Congress. She is a former member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board.