New Poll: Blackburn Leads Tennessee GOP Primary as Voters Want TN Legislature to Back TrumpRx
A new poll from Cygnal shows U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn with a commanding lead in the Tennessee Republican gubernatorial primary with 58% support, a 51-point lead over the field, while affordability is emerging as the defining line of the 2026 primary cycle.
The survey of likely Republican primary voters, conducted March 16–17, found cost of living and inflation ranking as the top concern among primary voters at 24%, setting the stage for SB 2040 to become one of the most politically explosive votes of the legislative session.
Tennessee’s SB 2040 is current legislation that seeks to ban pharmacies affiliated with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from operating in the state, which critics say directly counters the administration's push to lower prescription costs for American families through President Trump's new drug pricing initiative, TrumpRx.
According to the Cygnal poll, TrumpRx carries 80% support among Tennessee’s GOP primary voters, and 71% want their state legislators to actively back President Trump's drug pricing agenda.
Founder and CEO of Cygnal, Brent Buchanan, commented on the poll's findings.
"Republican primary voters in Tennessee are rewarding candidates who stand with President Trump on lowering prescription drug costs, and they won't look kindly on anyone who undermines that effort,” Buchanan said. “With cost of living topping the issue agenda and TrumpRx enjoying overwhelming support, legislators who back SB2040 are walking into a political buzzsaw of their own making."
Tennessee GOP primary voters said they are less likely to support a state legislator (53%) or gubernatorial candidate (60%) who voted for legislation that undermines TrumpRx. Perhaps most damning, only 16% of voters say they would re-elect a legislator who voted the wrong way on this bill.
Buchanan argues, with numbers like those, in a primary electorate, passing SB 2040 isn't just bad policy; it's a political liability.
“This is already a tough cycle for incumbents, and TrumpRx turns SB2040 into a landmine,” Buchanan continued. “Only 16 percent say they would re-elect a legislator who voted the wrong way on this bill. A third are undecided, making them a group that moves toward punishment, not safety, once they see this as a choice between President Trump’s agenda and higher drug costs.”
This new polling follows a TV ad that hit the airwaves earlier this month from MAGA-aligned group "Shaping Health Initiatives For Tomorrow" (SHIFT). The ad calls on Tennessee Senate Republicans to stand with President Trump and stop SB2040, and reads in part, “The Nashville swamp is cooking up a plan to derail President Trump's efforts. They want to shutter healthcare access, causing drug prices to skyrocket and making life harder for Tennessee families. Why are they trying to sabotage the MAGA affordability agenda?”
According to publicly available ad tracking data, the ad is backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars and is running in the Nashville media market.
The affordability concern amongst voters extends well beyond drug prices. The Cygnal poll surfaces a broader pattern of economic unease that touches housing, technology infrastructure, and the growing role of artificial intelligence in everyday life. On housing, 36% of voters say housing costs are "crushing" their finances, and when asked about solutions, voters gravitate toward direct family relief, 33% favor first-time homebuyer savings accounts, and 26% support repurposing vacant commercial space, compared to just 7% who back developer incentives.
On data centers, 43% of voters support building them statewide, a healthy +18 net approval, but that support flips to opposition (-3 net) when asked about citing them locally.
"The through-line is affordability and whose side you're on," Buchanan said. "It's either President Trump and fellow Tennessee families, or higher costs and more risk."
