NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — As Tennessee's Republican candidates for governor battle for their party's nomination, they are getting a little help from their friends.
Shadowy outside groups are spending millions of dollars to try to influence your vote.
On one side, supporting U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, stands a special-interest group that wants to privatize public education — while no one knows who is behind another shadowy group that has launched an ad campaign attacking her.
"I think what voters are seeing is a barrage of 30-second slam attacks that really don't explain what the claim exactly is and why it's relevant to the position that they're running for," said Jonathan Matisse, a reporter for the political newsletter The Tennessee Journal.
In the absence of any debate — and with Blackburn doing very few media interviews — most voters are getting a barrage of TV ads that do not tell the whole story.
One group, which calls itself the Tennessee Freedom Fund, has released one video echoing President Donald Trump's praise for Blackburn, even though the MAGA leader has not endorsed anyone in the GOP primary. It has aired at least three other ads attacking one of Blackburn's opponents, U.S. Rep. John Rose.
So far, the Tennessee Freedom Fund has reported spending $2.4 million to help Blackburn win the governor’s race.
"The Tennessee Freedom Fund is funded largely by donors that are associated with the Club for Growth, which is a group that has supported Marsha Blackburn previously and has endorsed her in this race,” Matisse said.
But what the ads don't tell you is that the Tennessee Freedom Fund wants to privatize public schools through school vouchers.
Here's the fund's biggest donor, billionaire Jeff Yass, talking at a conference last year about his vision for education: "It would give entrepreneurs, like this room and the people who want to get into this room, an opportunity to try out their business models."
“Let the winners expand, and let the losers die,” Yass continued.
Yet the ads are pure political red meat, focusing on issues such as illegal immigration instead of the fund's push for school vouchers.
"These are the kind of things that are brought up for Republican primary voting specifically, but don't necessarily reveal to a person who's watching it, hey, this group cares about school choice or vouchers," Matisse said.
Even less is known about the group behind a controversial ad attacking Blackburn on her relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Her campaign has called it libelous.
It was paid for by a dark-money group called the American Exceptionalism Institute, which is not required to disclose its donors.
"We may know that they've run ads in other races but not necessarily who's giving them the money and what the purpose of that money is going towards – other than they want Marsha Blackburn to lose."
That controversial ad, which the Blackburn campaign is attempting to get taken off the air, focuses on a bill she sponsored in Congress that critics say increased the number of opioid deaths.
That bill was the subject of a 60 Minutes investigation in 2017.
NewsChannel 5 went back and watched that investigation. What a lot of people miss is that the bill passed both the House and Senate with no objections.
President Obama signed it into law.