This article was originally published by Tennessee Lookout on October 30, 2026. It is republished here under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Any views expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Political Report or the Outsider Media Foundation. Title amended for clarity. Header image added by Independent Political Report. IPR encourages readers to support the author and publication by also visiting the original article.
Two independent expenditure groups have now spent just under $10 million attacking Tennessee independent gubernatorial candidate David Hatley, with the 2026 election less than five days away.
Hatley is running as a “conservative” independent, drawing ire from U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican gubernatorial nominee. Hatley is a Washington County hot tub mogul who has loaned nearly $12 million to his campaign, according to an Oct. 27 pre-election filing.
Blackburn is the frontrunner in the race, but almost immediately after her August primary win, instead of attacking her Democratic Party opponent — Memphis City Councilmember Jerri Green — her campaign created a website going after Hatley called “deadbeatDave.com”
The attack advertisements against Hatley are funded by the Tennessee Freedom Fund ($3 million) and the Choose Freedom Fund ($6.5 million).
The Tennessee Freedom Fund has been funded through Blackburn’s Senate campaign account, finance billionaire Jeff Yass and another pro-Blackburn PAC called Team Tennessee, whose top donors include payday lender Advance Financial and tobacco giant Reynolds America.
The Tennessee Freedom Fund is run by staffers for Club For Growth, a conservative group at the forefront of pushing private school vouchers in the state.
But the money backing Choose Freedom is harder to track.
The Choose Freedom PAC registered in Tennessee on Sept. 18, and on the same day, it took a donation of exactly $4.2 million, spending the same amount on ads attacking Hatley over legal issues surrounding his finances in the 1990s. Hatley has openly discussed his previous financial crimes on the trail and in a biography he released ahead of his campaign.
The group then took in another $2.3 million on Oct. 13 and spent the exact amount again that same day on more ads attacking Hatley.
Campaign finance records show the donation to the Choose Freedom PAC is virtually untraceable to a person. The donation to the Choose Freedom PAC came from Choose Freedom Inc., a political nonprofit set up to spend tens of millions of dollars in 2026 races across the country, according to The New York Times.
Brendan Glavin, the director of insights at OpenSecrets, an organization that tracks money in politics, said Choose Freedom Inc.’s address was registered to Red Curve Solutions in Massachusetts, an accounting and compliance services firm whose major client is MAGA Inc., the primary PAC affiliated with President Donald Trump.
“This looks less like a donor trying to hide their spending and more about creating distance from partisan activity,” said Glavin. “Choose Freedom wants people to see its attacks as a legitimate issue, as opposed to the motive being politics and partisan meddling.”
Choose Freedom PAC’s in Tennessee lists an Alabama office address. The same address is listed for several other PACs run by national conservative groups, like the Alliance For a Better Future and Civic Renewal Fund.
The Lookout emailed a representative listed for the Choose Freedom PAC with questions and received no response. A reporter also called the number listed for the PAC and received a message saying the number couldn’t receive calls.
The Lookout reached out to the Blackburn campaign for this story and received no response.
Why the attack ads on Hatley help Blackburn
After winning the Republican primary, Blackburn became the favorite to become Tennessee’s next governor, as the GOP hasn’t lost a statewide elected office in two decades.
During the primary, rival U.S. Rep. John Rose spent nearly $14 million of his own money. Blackburn relied on support from the Tennessee Freedom Fund and Team Tennessee.
The cost of the primary sapped Blackburn’s campaign finances: Her campaign had $1 million in cash in the bank with one week left in the campaign, compared with Hatley’s $3.9 million, according to state campaign finance filings.
After the primary, it quickly became clear that Hatley, a self-described conservative businessman, planned to spend millions and court traditional Republican voters.
“I’ve always been pro-life and pro-guns,” Hatley said to the Lookout. “I want to be independent because I don’t want to have party pressure.”
Trump came to Tennessee on Oct. 10 for a rally in Clarksville, which featured Blackburn, among other state GOP lawmakers.
Blackburn was one of the first U.S. House members to endorse Trump in 2016, an early bet that paid off when he endorsed her in her successful U.S. Senate bid two years later. Trump did not endorse Blackburn in the primary, but her campaign materials and independent advertisements emphasized her close ties to the president.
Blackburn said at the rally she was the “only conservative” race.
Trump told attendees, “you have to vote Republican.”
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