Poll says Boyd has pulled ahead of Black in GOP gubernatorial primary
While Diane Black led other Republican candidates in a Tennessee Star poll some months ago, the arch-conservative online website reports a new survey this week shows Randy Boyd is now the frontrunner.
Black TV ad attacks Boyd and Lee as ‘moderates’
Diane Black has become the first gubernatorial candidate to air a TV attack ad. It targets two of her fellow Republicans, Randy Boyd and Bill Lee, calling both of them moderates and depicting Black as the only conservative in the GOP primary. Beth Harwell isn’t mentioned.
Five guber candidates support collecting sales tax from out-of-state retailer sales to TN customers; differ on how to use resulting revenue
Five candidates for governor – Republicans Randy Boyd, Beth Harwell and Bill Lee along with Democrats Karl Dean and Craig Fitzhugh – praised a U.S. Supreme Court decision last week that means Tennessee can now require out-of-state online retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases made by their Tennessee, reports the Times Free Press.
Their comments came at a gubernatorial candidate forum hosted by the newspaper Monday in Chattanooga. One major GOP candidate, Diane Black, was campaigning in Carter County Monday and did not participate.
Lee new TV ad twofer: One focused on Jesus Christ, the other on Donald Trump (he supports both)
Press release from Bill Lee campaign
FRANKLIN, Tenn. – Today, businessman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee released two new statewide television ads.
Mae Beavers endorses Bill Lee for GOP gubernatorial nomination
Former state Sen. Mae Beavers of Mount Juliet, who abandoned a run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination earlier this year and is now running for mayor of Wilson County, has endorsed Williamson County businessman Bill Lee in the governor’s race.
In GOP debate, candidates for governor back Trump immigration policy, dispute Lee’s claim to be the ‘only outsider’
The leading Republican candidates for Tennessee governor tried not to second-guess President Donald Trump during a debate Wednesday night, including pledging support for his administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, according to the Associated Press report.
At the debate, House Speaker Beth Harwell, ex-state economic development commissioner Randy Boyd and businessman Bill Lee blamed congressional inaction for the migrant family separations that have sparked recent public outrage. The statements likely took aim at U.S. Rep. Diane Black, who instead took a stance similar to Trump by blaming Democrats. She said Democrats are not supporting construction of a border wall.
Lee accused of campaign finance violations; spokesman calls complaint ‘nonsense’
Williamson County businessman Bill Lee is accused in a recently-filed complaint of violating various laws in the financing of his campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, reports The Tennessean. A spokesman for the candidate calls the complaint “nonsense” and the newspaper notes there are a couple of apparent factual errors that might prompt the Registry of Election Finance to dismiss it.
Boyd leads guber field in political ad purchases with $9M; Black at $7M
Four Republican candidates for governor have purchased $21 million in political advertising for their campaigns, reports The Tennessean. Two Democrats and a couple of PACs involved in the gubernatorial campaign have, combined, spent about $2 million on ads, for a $23 million statewide total.
That’s for ads already run and those purchased and scheduled to run in the campaign days ahead.
Black wants Memphis Megasite redo; other guber candidates would stay the project’s course
Diane Black has taken a strikingly different stance on developing the Memphis Regional Megasite in Haywood County notes the Jackson Sun in a Thursday article rounding up comments from other gubernatorial candidates on the subject. Black proposes to turn the megasite into an “agricultural hub” instead of continuing the so-far-unsuccessful effort to get a big new business located there.
Black outlined her proposal in an Commercial Appeal op-ed piece back in late April, declaring the project has been “a boondoggle from the beginning” and “thoroughly mismanaged by the bureaucrats in Nashville” – including, presumably, fellow GOP gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd, who headed the Department of Economic and Community Development for a period of the megasite’s development.
New PAC backs Lee in Republican gubernatorial race with radio ad
A new Super PAC supporting Tennessee Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee says it began airing radio ads today touting the Williamson County businessman as the “conservative outsider we need,” reports the Times Free Press.
