Team Tennessee, Sure — If Tennessee Now Includes D.C., Florida, Illinois, and Half the Country

When Team Tennessee PAC quietly appeared on the campaign finance scene in January 2025, it did not look like a grassroots Tennessee operation. It looked like something far more polished — a professionally assembled political instrument built by and for the state’s most entrenched political consultants. According to filings reviewed by TruthWire, the PAC was seeded with $25,000 from Franklin businessman Peter Bray and $5,000 from longtime GOP consultant Ward Baker, founder of Baker Strategies and a political strategist closely connected to Sen. Marsha Blackburn and numerous establishment Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. The treasurer of record is Katie Reid. From its very first day, the PAC bore the fingerprints of Tennessee’s professional political class.

The money that flowed into the PAC over the next several months only reinforced that impression. By mid-year, Team Tennessee PAC had reported roughly $676,000 in contributions — but barely half of that came from inside Tennessee. Over 52% of the PAC’s funding originated outside the state. Florida alone accounted for over $191,000, mostly from wealthy donors concentrated in Vero Beach, Miami Beach, and Boca Raton. Illinois supplied another $55,000, including a single $50,000 check from an investor in Winnetka. Additional contributions came from Arkansas, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Alaska, Minnesota, Missouri, Massachusetts, Oregon, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, California, North Carolina, and elsewhere.

For a PAC named “Team Tennessee,” the financial foundation appears distinctly national — and not a little Washington-centric.

The expenditures confirm this. Rather than hiring Tennessee counsel, the PAC retained Jones Day, a major D.C.-based law firm, for legal consulting. It used BHNM LLC in Houston for compliance, CMDI in Tysons Corner, VA for data management, and WinRed Technical Services in Arlington, VA for fundraising infrastructure. The most striking line item comes from Lane Kidd, a veteran DC trucking lobbyist, who provided an in-kind donation worth nearly $9,000 to host a Washington, D.C., cocktail event for the PAC. In other words, the earliest “Team Tennessee” gathering didn’t even take place in Tennessee — it took place in the heart of the influence industry.

Despite this national money pipeline, the PAC has positioned itself as a major funder of Tennessee’s state-level political class. According to filings, Team Tennessee PAC cut checks to 20 Republican legislators on a single day — January 9, 2025 — with most receiving $1,000 each, and House Speaker Cameron Sexton receiving $5,000. The list reads like a partial list of who’s who of establishment-aligned state Republicans: Paul Bailey, Clark Boyd, Gino Bulso, Scott Cepicky, Ron Gant, Johnny Garrett, Rusty Grills, Michael Hale, Gary Hicks Jr., Renae Jones, Kelly Keisling, William Lamberth II, Michele Reneau, Rick Scarbrough, Chris Todd, Greg Vital, Ryan Williams, Jason Zachary, and Rep. Jake McCalmon.

McCalmon’s appearance is particularly notable because the PAC’s single largest Tennessee donor — $100,000 from Franklin billionaire Willis Johnson, founder of Copart — is also McCalmon’s grandfather. Combined with McCalmon receiving PAC support, it illustrates how deeply interwoven Tennessee’s political and donor networks can be.

It is important, however, to draw one distinction clearly and fairly: a PAC contribution does not automatically make the recipient an establishment loyalist. Candidates often have no control over who donates to them, and many do not know a PAC contribution has arrived until after the reporting period. Some recipients — such as Rep. Michele Reneau, who is widely known for her grassroots support and reform-oriented activism — do not neatly fit the establishment mold. But while a few exceptions exist, the overall pattern remains unmistakable: over 95% of the beneficiaries are closely aligned with Tennessee’s long-standing Republican power structure. A handful of non-establishment names does not alter the clear design of the PAC’s strategic giving.

For grassroots conservatives across Tennessee — especially in Williamson County, where battles between establishment Republicans and America First conservatives have intensified — the significance of these filings is not merely financial. They map out the political ecosystem sustaining the status quo: a system where PACs seeded by political consultants, funded by national money, staffed by D.C. law firms, and celebrated at Washington lobbyist receptions can inject large sums strategically into state races, tilting the field long before grassroots candidates ever file their petitions.

The filings also highlight something long understood but rarely seen this clearly: The real power in Tennessee politics is not merely held by voters, candidates, or even officeholders. It is held by the donor networks, political consultants, and PACs that operate in the shadows between them. They are the connective tissue linking Tennessee’s elected leaders to the Republican establishment in Washington — an establishment that grassroots conservatives argue has spent years undermining the very populist agenda that voters believed they were advancing.

In that sense, Team Tennessee PAC is not just one more political committee. It is a window into the ongoing struggle over who defines the direction of the Tennessee Republican Party:
▪ the voters,
▪ or the small circle of D.C.-linked strategists, donors, and insiders who have historically controlled the levers of influence.

If the PAC’s first-year filings tell us anything, it is that the latter group remains very much in charge — and they are willing to spend nationally sourced money to keep it that way.

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