NASHVILLE — Sen. Bill Hagerty is closing his re-election campaign on the issue Tennessee families feel every week: the cost of living. “Tennessee families are working hard just to keep up,” Hagerty says in a new video released Tuesday. “Groceries cost more, gas costs more. And for a lot of people, a house they can’t touch.”
Hagerty laid out how he is fighting to bring costs down. “Stop Washington from spending money it doesn’t have. Keep the dollar strong, and make it cheaper to build here in America, so that a house is something a young family can afford again,” he said. “Fix that and a paycheck goes further.”
The former U.S. Ambassador to Japan leans on his record as a builder. “I’ve spent my career getting things built. Businesses, jobs, real results,” Hagerty said. “I’ll fight the Washington waste so you can keep your hard-earned dollars in your pocket. … You’re working hard for your family, and I’m working hard for you.”
Hagerty is also crediting President Trump with a turnaround Tennesseans can see. In a Daily Wire op-ed, he wrote that the President “has proven in Memphis that we don’t have to accept the premise” that violent crime comes with city life, “and it may be the greatest accomplishment of his second term.”
Tennesseans are turning out. Through Oct. 19, 397,417 had already voted early or absentee, 69% more than at the same point in the 2022 governor’s race, according to state early-vote data. Early voting runs through Thursday, Oct. 29, with photo ID required, and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Hagerty faces Democrat Marquita Bradshaw on the statewide ballot.
