Tennessee Republicans Held the Senate. Now Gov.-Elect Marsha Blackburn Is Building Her Team Fast.

Election night was rough for Republicans in a lot of places. Tennessee wasn’t one of them. Marsha Blackburn won the governor’s race, and the Republican supermajority in the state Senate came through untouched, holding 27 of 33 seats.

One week later, the governor-elect isn’t taking a victory lap. She’s hiring.

On Tuesday, Blackburn named Michael Hendrix as her chief of staff, the first cabinet-level pick of her incoming administration. That same morning, Senate Republicans chose her longtime ally and fellow Franklin resident, Majority Leader Jack Johnson, to be the next lieutenant governor. By Wednesday she had added a chief legal counsel, a policy counsel and a full inauguration team.

That’s a fast start for someone who doesn’t take the oath until January.

The man who will run her office

Hendrix isn’t a campaign operative being rewarded with a title. He’s a policy guy. He currently serves as policy director for Gov. Bill Lee, which means he already knows how the governor’s office works from the inside, according to Chattanoogan.com, which published the transition’s announcement.

Before joining Lee’s team, Hendrix was a senior fellow and director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, the conservative think tank in New York. The Nashville Post reported that he also once worked as senior director for research and emerging issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. He lives in Brentwood with his wife, Sarah Ruth.

Blackburn announced the pick herself.

“Michael understands the policy challenges and opportunities facing our state,” she said in the full statement. “He brings a depth of experience that will be important to our team as we move forward.”

Hendrix said he was grateful for “her confidence in me” and that he looks forward to “helping advance the priorities of the incoming administration.”

The choice says something about how Blackburn plans to govern. Picking Lee’s own policy director keeps continuity with an administration Republicans credit with cutting taxes and bringing in jobs. Lee himself has been gracious about the handoff. “Tennesseans have placed their trust in an experienced leader,” he posted after the election, adding that he looked forward “to working together to ensure a smooth transition.”

A help-wanted sign for the whole state

Blackburn also launched a transition website Tuesday inviting Tennesseans to apply for jobs in her administration. According to the Tennessee Star, the site says she is looking for “talented, experienced, and dedicated individuals who are committed to serving the people of Tennessee and making our state America’s Conservative leader.”

It also openly invites people with private-sector backgrounds, not just career government staff.

The rest of the bench is filling in quickly. Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter, who also runs the state’s economic development department, chairs the transition. Former campaign manager Abigail Sigler is senior adviser, and Todd Rapp is press secretary. On Wednesday, Blackburn announced Russell Thomas as chief legal counsel and Ben Blackmon as policy counsel, and named strategist Ward Baker to chair her January inaugural committee, the Tennessee Star reported.

The Senate picks its own leader

Across the Capitol on Tuesday, the 27-member Senate Republican Caucus met to choose its leaders by secret ballot. It was a real contest.

Johnson, who has been majority leader for eight years, beat Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta for the caucus nomination for Senate speaker, according to WKRN. In Tennessee, the Senate speaker is also the lieutenant governor and first in line to succeed the governor. Because Republicans hold the supermajority, the formal vote when the 115th General Assembly convenes on Jan. 12 is expected to be a formality.

The caucus didn’t release the count. The Tennessee Lookout described the race as narrow and noted the caucus let one outgoing senator vote by proxy through an attorney and allowed another to vote absentee.

Johnson will succeed Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who is retiring after five terms as lieutenant governor and 48 years in the General Assembly, according to the caucus.

Blackburn didn’t wait long to cheer the result.

The partnership matters. Johnson is tied closely to Blackburn, the Lookout reported. A governor whose lieutenant governor already runs the Senate the way she would like has a much easier path for her agenda.

Johnson also brings a track record conservatives like. He sponsored Tennessee’s law banning gender transition procedures for minors, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2025.

Two women move up

The caucus also put two women into its top jobs. Sen. Dawn White of Murfreesboro, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, was chosen majority leader by acclamation. Sen. Becky Massey of Knoxville, who chairs the Transportation Committee, became caucus chair after a runoff with Sen. Bill Powers of Clarksville. The previous chair, Sen. Ken Yager, was eliminated in the first round.

Blackburn congratulated both, calling White “an outstanding leader for the people of the Volunteer State.”

Reading the election honestly

Not every Republican in the room read last week’s results the same way. WPLN reported that every county in Tennessee shifted further left this year and that Democrats flipped six state House seats.

Bailey made that his pitch. “We hear you. We know that we can do better, and we will,” he told colleagues, adding that the Senate has to protect the people’s interests “even when they’re inconsistent with the president’s, our party’s and others in power.”

Johnson had a different read. He called the national swing a “rebuke on the national party,” not an indictment of Tennessee’s senators. His point has some weight: the state Senate held all of its Republican seats, the only legislative chamber in the Southeast to do so, according to WPLN.

The caucus sided with Johnson.

A win to build on

Blackburn also has a fresh ballot victory to point to. Voters approved Amendment 2, which bars a statewide property tax in Tennessee.

“When I led the fight against a state income tax, Tennesseans showed up and stopped it,” Blackburn posted Monday. “This November, you did it again.”

Tennessee already has no state income tax. Now it has a constitutional wall against a statewide property tax, too. For a governor who campaigned on keeping Tennessee “America’s conservative leader,” that gives her a ready-made selling point for every business she tries to lure across the state line.

Inauguration is in January. Between now and then, expect more names on that transition website and a Senate leadership team that looks ready to work with her from day one.