Democrat gubernatorial nominee Jerri Green has formally called on Independent Lauren Pinkston to step out of the race. In a news release issued Wednesday the Green campaign noted:
“Following a private call from our team that has now been publicly acknowledged, the Green for Governor campaign is now publicly calling on independent candidate Lauren Pinkston to officially suspend her campaign and drop out of the race immediately.
“Lauren has run a good race, but independent polling from both conservative and
progressive-leaning sources shows she is unable to crack 2%. These polls were not
commissioned by any candidate in the race, and they clearly and consistently indicate her campaign is unviable while we continue to gain ground every day,” said a spokesperson for the campaign.
Conservative commentator Steve Gill acknowledged in an interview that the recent TargetSmart poll aligns with the conservative Beacon poll from mid-August. “While Beacon had Marsha at 46% and Jerri at 33%, the newer TargetSmart poll shows the gap closing: Marsha at 45% and Jerri at 36%.”
Green’s call for Pinkston to drop out comes after she took to social media in recent days to attempt a bizarre historical defense of Andrew Jackson’s ownership of slaves and the Indian Removal Act (IRA) as genocide caused by childhood trauma, before doubling down against backlash in the comments, and ultimately deleting the posts entirely.
“We initially reached out to her privately because we hoped there was some shared
understanding of what this race demands of candidates,” said Alex Hensley, Green’s campaign manager.
“The recent armchair commentary on state history and trauma should be disqualifying. Attempting to retroactively diagnose historical figures to excuse atrocities is deeply thoughtless at worst and juvenile at best. It is an insult to communities living with the effects of those historical realities, as well as victims of violence that live with residual trauma everyday and deserve a leader that isn’t flippant about these issues. This is a serious race that will have life-altering consequences for the people of this state, and this level of carelessness should be disqualifying.”
These stumbles underscore a broader point about a reality that voters deserve the sober truth on. While Pinkston alleges that these independent polls are slanted, the fact of the matter is that it is highly unlikely that any poll would be 30-50 points off base.
“Lauren can frame the numbers however she wants, but she cannot win this race. Asking her to drop out isn’t limiting competition—it acknowledges that the stakes of this race are too high to pull even 1 or 2 points from Jerri Green. Jerri is now within single digits of Marsha Blackburn, who is bought by corporations and billionaires and has refused to hold a single town hall in almost 10 years,” said Hensley.
She continued: “Tennesseans’ costs at the gas pump, high grocery bills, and healthcare that’s out of reach, and it’s not letting up. Continuing to run at this point can be seen as nothing more than a vanity effort to boost her career—and Tennesseans deserve a leader who knows when it’s time to bow out, and when it’s time to fight. Jerri Green is the fighter we need right now.”
