Fincher ends ‘listening tour,’ starts run for Senate

After a 10-day “listening tour” of the state, former Congressman Stephen Fincher has announced that  he is a candidate for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. He did so in an interview with The Tennessean that was also published Sunday in other Gannett-owned newspapers around the state.

Fincher, who represented Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District from 2011 to 2017, cast himself as a “citizen legislator” as opposed to a “career politician” — a term aimed at U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Brentwood, who is also seeking the GOP nomination to the seat being vacated by Sen. Bob Corker.

He said he’s running to help push President Donald Trump’s agenda and shake up a “do-nothing Congress.”

“We’re going to get in this race, and we’re going to get in it to win it, and go up there and try to get something done,” the 44-year-old Fincher said. “Let’s stand up with the president on his policies.

“From what people are telling us, they’re just tired of the status quo career politician, and it’s time we — to take an old saying from the farm — plow and turn over Congress and put some new growth up there. I think that’s what people want, so that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

…Fincher declined to say how much money he thinks he’ll need to raise for his Senate bid, nor would he discuss the possibility of self-financing a portion of his campaign. 

A spokesman for Fincher said a campaign team is still being assembled and that an announcement will happen soon.