Candidate Dean announces Republican support committee

As early voting begins in Tennessee, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Karl Dean has launched a statewide committee of Republicans and independents who are crossing party lines to campaign on his behalf.

In the race, Dean has campaigned as a centrist committed to bipartisanship in governing, seeking to appeal to Republican and moderate voters.

The Republicans and Independents for Dean coalition is chaired by music executive Mike Curb, the former cochair of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign and Republican lieutenant governor of California, and Linda Curb, his wife who helps lead the couple’s philanthropic foundation.

Among the co-chairs of the statewide committee is Beth Fortune, a former Vanderbilt University vice chancellor and chief operating officer and senior adviser to Republican Beth Harwell’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign.

The committee itself is a “recent development,” said Dean spokeswoman Paige Hill, but a group of roughly 30 Republicans and independents have been “actively involved” with the campaign through fundraising and volunteering.

Hill said that because of their efforts, the Dean campaign has identified more than 11,000 Tennesseans who would otherwise vote Republican but have committed to vote for Dean in the governor’s race.

The committee’s task is to grow that number between now and Nov. 6, when Dean faces Bill Lee, a Williamson County businessman who is the Republican nominee in the race.

“I know how hard it is to try to please everyone,” Curb said in a video released Tuesday by the Dean campaign.

He touts Dean’s role in bringing industry to Nashville and cites the candidate’s plan to address health care: Medicaid expansion.