Franklin mayor outspending controversial challenger Gabrielle Hanson as Election Day nears
In the weeks leading up to Franklin's municipal election, controversial mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson continued spending as early voting began.
Her opponent, incumbent mayor Ken Moore, is just spending, well, more.
According to campaign finance records, Moore spent $23,427.49 more than Hanson's $21,817.82 between Oct. 1-15.
And Moore outpaced Hanson in contributions during the 14-day span, collecting $13,683 across 49 donations compared to Hanson's three totaling $312.30. Only one of Hanson's contributions came after an Oct. 2 forum in which the Tennessee Active Club, an organization identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist hate group, attended in a show of support for the candidate.
Contributions under $1,000 do not have to be reported by the candidates, according to law.
Finance reports show Hanson's largest expense in October was $12,586 spent on mailers. She spent $1,482.82 in campaign yard signs and $3,250 on social media through James Luncente, co-founder of Parents’ Choice, a group who sued Williamson County Schools over curriculum concerns.
As campaigning comes to a close, Moore also has more money on hand than Hanson, with $124,041.82 to spend versus Hanson's $88,700.65, according to Williamson County Election Commission finance reports.
But Hanson is continuing her battle to become Franklin's next mayor even as she's embroiled a slew of controversies that began after the Nashville Covenant School shooting, when she made unfounded statements about the motive in the attack and said she had a premonition that it would happen beforehand.
In June, Hanson came under fire after she sent an email to Nashville International Airport CEO Doug Kreulen criticizing the airport for donating money to an organization she called "radical" in sponsorship of a Juneteenth celebration.
Then, in September, Hanson admitted in an Instagram post to being arrested on a charge of promoting prostitution in Dallas in the mid-1990s.
In the days after the Oct. 2 forum, Hanson, in a since-deleted Instagram reel, posted that she did not hire the group. And the group seemed to support her claims, posting on Telegram that Hanson did not need to pay for their services.
When asked to denounce Nazis during an Oct. 10 board meeting, Hanson declined.
"I don't denounce any of my clients. I have a black client, a lesbian client, a Muslim client. I have Brad Lewis (owner of the Lewis Country Store) as a client. I'm a realtor. I'm not going to denounce anybody their right to be whatever it is that they want to be, whether I agree with what they do in their personal life or not," she said at the time.
Franklin's election is Oct. 24.
Reach reporter Craig Shoup by email at cshoup@gannett.com and on X @Craig_Shoup. To support his work, sign up for a digital subscription to www.tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Franklin Elections: Find out who's spending more, getting more?
