Franklin’s incumbent mayor wins in landslide
“The people of Franklin have said we like what we have. We’re a very special place, and we’re not going to let people come in and tear down what people have been doing for 40 years to make this a great city.”
— FRANKLIN MAYOR KEN MOORE
Franklin Mayor Ken Moore defeated Alderman Gabrielle Hanson in a suburban Middle Tennessee mayor’s race that drew unusually high attention after Hanson refused to denounce support from a group of neo-Nazis.
Moore won 80% of the vote compared to Hanson’s 20%. He was helped by a significant turnout that saw 16,209 ballots cast in the mayor’s race. In the 2019, 3,475 people voted in the Franklin mayoral race.
“I don’t think the battle with some of these folks is over, (but) I think we’ve started to win the battle even more,” Moore said in his victory speech. “The people of Franklin have said we like what we have. We’re a very special place, and we’re not going to let people come in and tear down what people have been doing for 40 years to make this a great city.”
The campaign’s final month was dominated by news coverage of Hanson, who was embroiled in one controversy after another.
An investigation by Nashville TV station NewsChannel 5 published in September found Hanson had posted a photo of a group of women claiming they supported her campaign, but at least one person featured had no idea who Hanson was.
The initial article kicked off a series of stories by NewsChannel 5 and the Williamson Herald about Hanson’s and her husband’s past, including Hanson admitting she pleaded no contest to a charge of promoting prostitution in the 1990s. She has told local reporters she thought she was working for a “modeling and entertainment casting company.”
Then reporters uncovered statements Hanson made claiming to predict
The Covenant School shooting and questioned where she lived as her husband ran for a U.S. congressional race in Chicago in 2022.
Hanson’s campaign responded to the news reports angrily, with staffers at one point trying to stop a reporter from entering a publicly open candidate forum.
The story took a turn when Hanson appeared at another event with bodyguards from the Tennessee Active Club, an antisemitic and white supremacist group.
Apparent supporters of Hanson vandalized the Herald’s office in the campaign’s final days.
The seat is nonpartisan, but Moore and Hanson are both Republicans. Hanson is to the right politically of Moore and other Franklin officials, several of whom publicly denounced her for taking support from neo-Nazis.
Hanson first gained public notoriety earlier this year when she wrote a letter criticizing Nashville International Airport officials for sponsoring a Juneteenth event in Franklin.