Lauren Pinkston for Tennessee Governor. Paid for by Bring Reason Back PAC. Not authorized by any candidate.
Looks up the ad's factual claims in fact-checkers, primary sources and wire reporting. Takes up to a minute.
Political ads · 2026 · TN
Tennessee Governor 2026: the ads, and who's paying for them
Marsha Blackburn (Republican), Jerri Green (Democrat), Misam Abidi (independent), Dean Brewer (independent), Ray Brown (independent), David Hatley (independent), Wendell Jackson (independent), Charles Van Morgan (independent), Eddie Lee Murphy (independent), Lauren Pinkston (independent), Victor L. Scoggin (independent), Dave Seeman (independent), Karl Knox Smithson (independent), L. Webb Taylor (independent) and Robert C. Vick (independent) are the candidates for governor of Tennessee in the November 3, 2026 general election. Semblen has analyzed 72 ads in this race; 44 used at least one manipulation technique, most often glittering generalities and appeal to prejudice.
Marsha Blackburn (REP), Jerri Green (DEM), Misam Abidi (IND), Dean Brewer (IND), Ray Brown (IND), David Hatley (IND), Wendell Jackson (IND), Charles Van Morgan (IND), Eddie Lee Murphy (IND), Lauren Pinkston (IND), Victor L. Scoggin (IND), Dave Seeman (IND), Karl Knox Smithson (IND), L. Webb Taylor (IND), Robert C. Vick (IND). On the ballot as listed by Tennessee Secretary of State, Candidates for Governor, November 3, 2026 General Election. 72 ads analyzed, 44 with at least one technique in the copy. Newest first. The paid-for-by line is the advertiser's own filing. Updated 2026-10-08.
Findings
As of 2026-10-08. Counts are of distinct ads; the same text run many times is one ad.
- Ads analyzed
- 72 (Meta 69, YouTube 3) · started running between 2025-10-28 and 2026-10-07
- With at least one technique
- 44 of 72 (61%)
- Most common techniques
- Glittering Generalities · 39 adsAppeal to Prejudice · 23 adsLoaded Language · 14 ads
- Meta
- 44 of 69 (64%) flagged · Glittering Generalities (39), Appeal to Prejudice (23), Loaded Language (14)
- YouTube
- 0 of 3 flagged
- Reported Meta spend
- $141,100–192,284 on all ads, $106,800–146,052 on flagged ads · Meta reports ranges; these are the sums of their ends
- Example
- “building businesses, creating jobs, and managing multi-million dollar budgets” — Glittering Generalities, paid for by Hatley for Tennessee · the flagged ad with the highest reported spend that shows the most common technique
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Semblen LLC · 5900 Balcones Drive STE 100, Austin, TX 78731
Who is running these ads
By sponsor (16)
| Paid for by | Ads | With at least one technique | Most common |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hatley for Tennessee | 23 | 19 of 23 (83%) | Glittering Generalities (16), Bandwagon Appeal (9), Appeal to Prejudice (8) |
| Marsha for Governor | 20 | 12 of 20 (60%) | Glittering Generalities (10), Appeal to Prejudice (5), Loaded Language (5) |
| Green For Governor | 12 | 9 of 12 (75%) | Glittering Generalities (9), Appeal to Prejudice (8), Black-and-White Fallacy (5) |
| Bring Reason Back | 3 | 0 of 3 | |
| Germantown Democratic Club | 2 | 0 of 2 | |
| Marsha Blackburn | 2 | 0 of 2 | |
| BEACON CENTER OF TENNESSEE | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| Committee to Elect Yusuf Hakeem | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| Friends of Carol Abney | 1 | 1 of 1 | Appeal to Fear (1), Appeal to Prejudice (1), Card Stacking (1) |
| INDEPENDENT VOTER PROJECT | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| Jerri Green | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| Pinkston for TN | 1 | 1 of 1 | Appeal to Prejudice (1), Black-and-White Fallacy (1), False Urgency (1) |
| Robert C. Vick for Governor | 1 | 1 of 1 | Glittering Generalities (1) |
| Rose for TN, Inc. | 1 | 1 of 1 | Flag-Waving (1), Glittering Generalities (1), Name Calling (1) |
| Tennessee Professional Fire Fighters Association | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| The Redemption Project | 1 | 0 of 1 |
Decide what counts
Not everyone would call every technique manipulation. Untick the ones you'd call ordinary persuasion and the count updates.
61% of the 72 ads here use at least one of the techniques ticked below (44 ads).
- Feel-good words with no concrete meaning. More on glittering generalities, with examples →
- Playing on dislike of a group. More on appeal to prejudice, with examples →
- Words picked for the feeling, not the facts. More on loaded language, with examples →
- "everyone's doing it" in place of a reason. More on bandwagon appeal, with examples →
- A label in place of an argument. More on name calling, with examples →
- Only two choices when there are more. More on black-and-white fallacy, with examples →
- Making you afraid so you stop weighing the facts. More on appeal to fear, with examples →
- Only the facts that help one side. More on card stacking, with examples →
- Blowing something up past what is true. More on exaggeration/hyperbole, with examples →
- Wrapping a position in patriotism.
- A catchy phrase in place of an argument.
- Pressure to act before you think. More on false urgency, with examples →
- Blaming one group for a complex problem. More on scapegoating, with examples →
- Borrowing a symbol's feeling for an unrelated claim. More on transfer, with examples →
- Hinting at a hidden plot without evidence. More on conspiracy appeal, with examples →
- Saying it again until it sticks. More on repetition, with examples →
Leaving out the softer ones (loaded language, glittering generalities, slogans, exaggeration, repetition): 57% of ads.
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Money in this race
Candidates for governor report their fundraising to Tennessee's state campaign-finance office, not the FEC. This page doesn't cover those reports yet, so it shows no money figures.
The ads
72 ads, newest first. Video transcripts are shown as the model read them, without caption cues like [music].
Showing the 3 ads paid for by Bring Reason Back. Show all 72 ads
Political Action Committee supporting the election of Lauren Pinkston for Governor of Tennessee
Looks up the ad's factual claims in fact-checkers, primary sources and wire reporting. Takes up to a minute.
Lauren Pinkston for Tennessee Governor
Looks up the ad's factual claims in fact-checkers, primary sources and wire reporting. Takes up to a minute.
Follow the Tennessee Governor race
An email when new ads come in from either side or the outside groups: the techniques, the words doing the work, and who paid. And each debate's analysis the morning after. One-click unsubscribe.
Semblen LLC · 5900 Balcones Drive STE 100, Austin, TX 78731
What this page is
- An ad is on this page because its own "Paid for by" line is a campaign in this race; or it ran mostly in TN and names a nominee for governor — unless its sponsor is a campaign for some other office (a U.S. Senate or House campaign included), or it also names TN's Senate nominees, in which case it is on the Senate race's page. Ads from outside groups appear alongside the campaigns' own.
- The candidates are the ones certified for the November ballot, from the source linked at the top. Governors are state offices, so there are no FEC filings behind this page: no money figures, and outside groups are placed on a side only when they are a campaign or a party committee.
- Campaigns run one text as many separate ads. Identical text from the same sponsor is one card here, marked with its number of variants.
- A technique is a specific manipulative move in the wording, found by our model and explained in one line. It is not a claim that the ad is false.
- Claims are checked when a reader asks: press "Check this ad's claims" on a card. The check runs once and its result is shown to everyone afterwards. The ten ads with the most money behind them in each race are checked ahead of time.
- Claim verdicts say what the cited sources say. A verdict that an ad is wrong or misleading is shown only when it cites an established fact-checker or an institutional record — Congress, a federal agency, a court — and its confidence is not low; a weaker one is not shown at all. Each verdict shows what it rests on and how confident it is. If we got one wrong, press Disagree: a verdict that readers dispute and no one defends comes down.
- Video ads come from the campaigns' own YouTube channels; the transcript is analyzed. Meta ads are analyzed on their text; their video and images are not, yet.