In early September, a new website appeared attacking independent Tennessee governor candidate David Hatley for a 1998 felony conviction. 

Hatley, a Washington County businessman, has talked extensively about his past mistakes, using them as a catalyst in a book published earlier this year ahead of his gubernatorial run. 

“It’s never fun when somebody attacks you,” Hatley said. “But at the end of the day it’s part of my journey, and they wouldn’t be attacking me if they didn’t have the same internal polling.”

Tennessee’s gubernatorial seat is open for the first time in eight years, as Gov. Bill Lee is term-limited, making him unable to run in 2026. Republicans have held the state’s governorship since 2010 and haven’t lost a statewide race for any office in a nearly two-decade-long stretch.

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn emerged from the Republican primary as the favorite to become Tennessee’s next governor after this November’s general election. The Democratic Party nominated Memphis City Councilmember Jerri Green on its ticket. 

But this year Hatley and Lauren Pinkston have emerged as independent candidates for governor, drawing substantial attention and fundraising.

Pinkston, a former Lipscomb University professor, is running as a moderate, arguing that voters are tired of both parties.

“I think the majority of voters are independent now, and they’re pretty unsatisfied with the two options that they have,” Pinkston said. 

These two campaigns come as the Democratic Party in Tennessee appears to be slipping further in statewide popularity, and polling shows Blackburn’s isn’t drawing the same level of enthusiasm from Republican voters as Lee did in past elections. 

Blackburn won the 2026 gubernatorial Republican primary with 43% of the vote in a three-way race. Her vote percentage was more than Lee’s Republican primary victory in 2018. 

But recent polling shows Blackburn garnering between 46-51% of the vote among registered voters. Lee won his general elections by larger margins, grabbing 60% of the vote in 2018 and 65% in 2022. 

Blackburn’s relatively low polling compared to Lee’s has given both independent candidates hope, and her campaign’s attacks show she’s at least thinking that Hatley could be pulling from her overall support.  The website attacking Hatley for the 1998 felony conviction is paid for by Blackburn’s gubernatorial campaign.

Hatley running as conservative outsider

Hatley has never run for political office in Tennessee and has spent most of his adult life as a businessman. 

After a felony bank fraud conviction, Hatley said he turned his life around. He became the successful owner of Whisper Outdoor, which started by manufacturing hot tubs and has since expanded to producing golf carts, boats and off-road vehicles.

While running as an independent, Hatley described himself as “a very conservative guy.”

“I’ve always been pro-life and pro-guns,” Hatley said. “I want to be independent because I don’t want to have party pressure.”

A tenet of Hatley’s argument to voters is that he is pushing for the state to have an elected auditor to “figure out where the money is going,” because he doesn’t feel like the state is managing its budget correctly.

He is also touting his willingness to spend at least $7 million of his own money and doesn’t plan to do any fundraising.

“I don’t want anyone in my ear,” Hatley said. “It’s very important that I go in on day one with a clean slate, only thinking about things that make sense for Tennessee.”

Pinkston trying to stake out moderate lane

Pinkston characterizes herself as a moderate alternative for voters who don’t support Blackburn or Green. But her public policy views show she aligns with many Democratic lawmakers on several key issues.

For instance, she supports a full repeal of the state’s private-school voucher program, which is costing Tennesseans nearly $300 million annually to pay for students to attend private schools. 

Pinkston also says the Memphis Safe Task Force was deployed “to aim for a strong headline, not for effective governance.” Instead of sending Tennessee National Guard troops to the city, Pinkston says she would have asked local law enforcement where it needed to fill gaps.

Pinkston says she has studied the state budget and believes Tennessee is “perfectly capable” of repealing the 4% grocery tax. She contends the state is losing revenue because large numbers of people cross into neighboring states to buy groceries, gasoline and big-ticket items such as electronics.

She criticizes Lee’s business tax rebate and reduction, saying she does not support incentives for Silicon Valley companies to move to Tennessee. Lawmakers eliminated the state’s property portion of the franchise tax in 2024, costing $4 billion in state revenue over the next decade and a three-year refund to businesses totaling $1.55 billion, despite criticism that out-of-state businesses would receive the lion’s share of the breaks.

Pinkston is an adoptive mother who has volunteered with women suffering crisis pregnancies. On abortion, she says, she “believes all life is sacred.” But she has criticized the state’s total abortion ban, which criminalizes physicians, as putting women’s lives at risk.

“Ultimately, health care decisions should lie with the patient and the doctor, and the issues of morality need to have social supports around them so we can save as many lives as possible in this state,” she said. “But the way we save lives and we save the lives of the unborn are to better resource mothers and to better resource families.”

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