Knox County Republicans won every countywide seat and kept their majority on the Knox County Commission on Aug. 6, but that's where the good news for the party stops.
Democratic candidates picked up voters in every single race compared to 2022, including major gains in the mayoral race. Democrats also flipped two high-profile seats, one on the Knox County Commission and one on the Knox County Board of Education. And for the first time since partisan elections were reintroduced in school board races beginning in 2022, the school board has a Democratic majority.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Knox County Republican Party chair Martin Daniel told Knox News as the GOP election night party wound down Aug. 6. "We’re going to have to try a little
harder, come together, unify. We’re gonna work on recruiting some really good candidates in four years."
The Knox County Republican election night party at the Crowne Plaza hotel downtown is a reliably celebratory event. Supporters enthusiastically celebrated wins in races up and down the local ballot on Aug. 6, but the overall mood wasn't quite as gleeful as usual. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee for governor, threw a party down the street that poached heavyweights like Glenn Jacobs, but the election night results also sapped the energy.
Party unity and candidates' backgrounds were an issue for Republicans this year: Crowded primaries marked by conflict between Republican candidates left the party fractured after the May 5 primary, and primary voters chose candidates who did not appeal to the broader pool of voters who turn out for the general election. It cost Republicans control of the school board and reduced their power on the county commission, though they retain a commanding 7-4 advantage there.
Why did Democrats achieve notable gains?
Daniels thinks it's demographics. "We got a lot of new people coming here. It’s probably changed the voting structure," he speculated.
Knox County Democratic Party chair Domonica Bryan thinks voters want candidates with appeal that reaches beyond the partisanship rewarded by Republican primary voters. "People are tired of the extreme policies that have been coming out, whether that's our school board, whether it's our state legislature. People are really tired of the extremes," she told Knox News after the election results were tallied.
Knox County mayoral race shows slip in Republican domination
Knox County Mayor-elect Betsy Henderson handily defeated two sitting Knox County commissioners in the GOP primary. She topped Commissioner Larsen Jay by 14 points and blew past Commissioner Kim Frazier by 21 points.
But in the general election, typically a cakewalk for Republicans in solidly red Knox County, Henderson won by only four points over Democrat Beau Hawk, who came into the race carrying his own albatross.
Knox News exclusively revealed in late June that Hawk had marched in Venezuela in at a pro-Nicolas Maduro rally in 2020. Republicans took the news and ran with it, tapping into the national Republican Party's strategy of equating Democrats to communists, Marxists and socialists (Hawk told Knox News he does not agree with Maduro's beliefs and was there to support the labor movement).
Henderson also lost ground from 2022, when Jacobs beat Democrat Debbie Helsley by 10 points. Jacobs' 2022 win, while resounding, created concern for Republicans because he won his first term in 2018 by 32 points. Eight years later, Henderson won by only 6 points.
Candidates in both parties, especially in places with a clear majority of voters from a single party, are becoming more and more partisan nationwide. Knox County is no exception: Republican voters here chose the most conservative candidates on the primary ballot. But candidates that appeal to deeply partisan primary voters often lose steam in general elections that attract a broader – and more centrist – set of voters. And that played out in Knox County.
It's entirely possible that a large constituency from the 24,805 voters who supported Henderson's opponents in the primary election declined to vote at all for county mayor in the general election, or crossed party lines to vote for Hawk.
Hawk also likely benefited from some of the tailwinds propelling other Democratic candidates across the country: He's young, has labor experience and focused his campaign on affordability.
Democrats plant their flag on Knox County's near west side
Republicans' majority on the 11-person Knox County Commission has shrunk from eight to seven. Democrat Brandon Huckaby cruised past Republican Sherry Super in District 3, which includes Cedar Bluff and Amherst.
That near-west county district has been trending Democratic for years. In 2024, Democrats won the corresponding school board seat and in 2022, Knox County Commission Chair Gina Oster barely won the seat.
But other factors propelled Huckaby to his convincing victory.
Incumbent candidates rarely lose in Knox County, though it's becoming more and more common. Oster, who was elected commission chair in 2024 and 2025, has been lauded by both Democrats and Republicans for her attentiveness to constituents.
Still, Super beat Oster by 11 votes in the most vitriolic race on the May 5 ballot. The attacks were one-sided, with Super targeting Oster's record of approving new housing, working across the aisle and, in Oster's words, "choosing people over party."
Super successfully read the mood of Republican primary voters and ran on promises to never support a tax increase and to always oppose high-density development. That message resonated in almost every race on the primary ballot and helped lift a group of likeminded Republican candidates.
In the general election, Super kept up her messaging from the primary and attacked Huckaby's support for the LGBTQ+ community, zeroing in on the fact that he's gay. The attacks didn't work.
Knox News also revealed Super owed $62,508 in federal income taxes and that she was taking money for her general election campaign from developers even as she railed against development.
Huckaby, meanwhile, gained support from former Republican elected officials like Eddie Mannis who are fed up with the party's far right. And Huckaby kept his focus on bread-and-butter issues instead of partisan ones, focusing on affordability, responsible growth and providing county services.
"When I ran for this seat, it was because I was tired of county commission focusing on party politics and constant infighting. I want to do the job and focus on local government without all the partisan fighting," Huckaby told Knox News after he was elected Aug. 6. "That's what I'm most excited about: to get to work. It's the whole thing that I ran for and what I promised."
School board race reveals a surprising new swing district
Republicans' suffered their biggest loss of the night in the Knox County school board election, and it was self-inflicted.
Before the primaries were decided, the GOP was sitting in a solid position with a 5-4 majority and veteran board members. But Republican primary voters blew up that advantage, selecting self-described "conservative Republican" Bill Sofield in the District 9 primary over board chair Kristi Kristy, who was first elected to the board in 2018.
That opened the door for Democrat Brandy Jenkins, who focused on support for public schools, teacher retention and keeping partisan politics out of the schools while Sofield emphasized bringing conservative policies into the district. He wanted to expand private school vouchers, which the school board doesn't have the ability to do, and remove "obscene" content from school libraries.
Jenkins' win in District 9, which runs along the south side of the Tennessee River to the borders with Blount and Sevier counties, is striking. District 9 has been solidly Republican, and the same district elected Andy Fox, one of the most conservative county commissioners, in 2024.
Her victory marks another advance for Democrats in districts they previously had no chance to win. Democrats used to be confined to only the city-dominated Districts 1 and 2, and often didn't even field candidates in some county districts.
But in the past few election cycles, Democrats have started to compete, and even win, in a widening circle around the city's core. They've started to consistently win in District 4, which is west of downtown and includes Bearden Hill, Bluegrass, Rocky Hill and West Hills neighborhoods.
Now Jenkins' win in District 9 marks a further expansion of Democratic success in a district that includes a substantial number of rural voters.
The 2028 election, when Republican Knox County Commissioner Andy Fox is up for reelection, will be a major test for both parties in District 9, which is now a surprising swing district.
Allie Feinberg is the politics reporter for Knox News. Email: allie.feinberg@knoxnews.com; Reddit: u/KnoxNewsAllie
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Why Democrats may be the real winners in Knox County's latest elections | Exclusive
