Some voters in this year’s Republican primary will likely get a sense of déjà vu when seeing the choice in the County Commission At-Large Seat 11 race.

Tombras and Holt faced each other in the GOP primary for the Knox County Commission 4th District seat in 2024.

Garrett Holt and Liz Tombras are squaring off for the seat, just as they did in the 2024 primary’s District 4 contest. Current Seat 11 Commissioner Kim Frazier is running for Knox County mayor.

Holt won handily in the GOP primary that year, taking more than two-thirds of the vote. He lost a close contest to Democrat Shane Jackson in the general election.

This year’s race is different because the electorate is much larger. Candidates for at-large seats run throughout the county, not just in the district where they live. 

That means that West Knox residents Holt and Tombras have to reach voters in Powell, Halls, Corryton and South Knox County.

Reaching voters across the county costs money, and Holt holds a commanding lead in fundraising. He raised $48,475 during the first quarter of the year and spent $32,747. Tombras has raised $6,070.

The winner will face Democrat Vivian Shipe, who is unopposed in the primary, and independent David Velarde in the general election. We will profile them during the general-election campaign.

Compass spoke with Holt about his campaign but could not arrange an interview with Tombras. This report relied on past reporting in Compass and recent news stories from other outlets for its profile of Tombras’ campaign.

Garrett Holt

This is Holt’s third shot at elected office, but he said this time feels different.

He ran for the nonpartisan 6th District City Council seat in 2021; in 2024 he ran for the 4th District County Commission seat, winning the GOP primary but losing in the general election. 

“In the City Council race, I walked into that knowing we were underdogs just based on the political dynamics of the city,” he said. “My last run for Commission, we were in a very, very close race in the 4th District. I lost in two very tight partisan elections, particularly the last one.” 

Holt described the county’s 4th District as “very purple,” and he lost by 1 percentage point. “I think this one’s a lot different, in my opinion,” he said.

Should he make it out of the primary, he believes Republicans will prevail in the countywide race for the 11th District At-Large seat.

“In the case of these countywide seats right now, typically the Republican primary will decide the election,” he said. “The mindset isn’t, ‘Hey, am I voting red or blue?’; it’s ‘Who do I think the best candidate is? Who’s the candidate I associate with the most or know the most?’ I think that decision-making process at the ballot booth is a lot different than where my two losses had me prior.”

Holt, 31, lives just west of Rocky Hill and is a lifelong Knoxville resident who was the valedictorian of his 2012 West High School class. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee with a degree in accounting and international business.

His interest in politics and public service started in high school. “As it relates to public office and everything, I was involved in service from a young age, really involved in a variety of community and service organizations in high school and college,” he said.

More recently he has been involved with Family Promise of Knoxville and is a past appointed member of the Board of Zoning Appeals. He currently serves on the Public Building Authority board.

After college, Holt worked in public accounting, and he sold medical diagnostic equipment for nine years. He has ventured into real estate and just made another big career pivot.

Holt, a bodybuilder, is studying medicine at Lincoln Memorial University with plans to become a physician. And he is spending virtually all of his free time running for office.

“The things I’m hearing most often are a lot of the same things I was hearing two years ago. I’d say the top things are growth and infrastructure, and those kind of go hand in hand, you know,” he said. 

“Knox County is growing — how are we responding to it? And I think people see that daily effect in terms of traffic, in terms of overcrowding at schools. They’re also seeing that in terms of inflationary pressures on our housing market.”

People are also talking about tax increases, Holt said, and some are slowly beginning to believe they may be necessary. The last time the county raised its property-tax rate was 1999.

“People are asking, ‘Hey, is this something that’s going to be a real conversation in the next few years?’, particularly as we encounter a new commission and encounter a new mayor’s administration,” Holt said. 

“For instance, I was at an event … and I think people can kind of see the writing on the wall — I’m not sure that’s the right terminology here — but I think that chatter is louder and louder.”

He said compensation levels for first responders and other county employees need to be increased, characterizing that as a needed public investment. That’s also the case with infrastructure improvements that people throughout the county are clamoring about.

He leans into a bullet point on his website: “Proactive planning in response to growth.” He used the same plank in a past campaign and considers it a motto of sorts.

“I think we live in a generally well-managed community, but I think the dynamics of that have changed, you know, in terms of planning itself,” he said. 

Holt said the county’s comprehensive land-use plan had not been updated for two decades prior to the Advance Knox process, which he called a positive step that has triggered discussion. Its recommendations still need to be codified by County Commission through the Uniform Development Ordinance, which is projected to happen in late summer.

Holt said that if he wins, he would look forward to really examining Advance Knox recommendations “with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that this is representing what we want the future of this community to look like.” 

Liz Tombras

Tombras might have better name recognition than her opponent among voters in the race. She was once married to the late Charles Tombras Jr., the scion of the nationally known Tombras advertising agency headquartered in downtown Knoxville.

Born in East Knoxville and now a West Hills resident, Tombras is a lifelong resident of Knoxville, a longtime advertising executive for WBIR-TV and a member of the Knoxville Advertising Hall of Fame. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee. At 85, she is the oldest candidate on the ballot. 

The 2024 tilt against Holt was Tombras’ first run for public office. During that campaign, she told Compass her platforms were addressing homelessness, improving infrastructure and reducing the number of undocumented people in the county. She also cautioned against in-filling the city and county with affordable housing units, saying the practice could reduce property values.

Two years later, growth is still top of mind.

She told KnoxTNToday that the population growth Knox County is experiencing is generating additional retail-sales-tax revenue, along with the increase in home sales and apartment rentals.

“When elected Commissioner, I will join the efforts of current office holders in examining county budget spending in identifying potential waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers’ money, then work to eliminate it,” she said. “We need to get a better handle on how our money is being spent before we consider taking more money in taxes from Knox County families, especially those who are battling to make ends meet now without a tax increase.”

According to Tombras, the county’s growth has resulted in “overdevelopment,” which damages the community’s culture and safety. She said that many of the county’s roads are narrow, curvy and often hilly, and that infrastructure needs to go in ahead of new housing developments.

Tombras said her long and successful career in television advertising has prepared her for the financial responsibilities of County Commission. She oversaw both local and national accounts for WBIR-TV, and in 2004 she was inducted into the Knoxville Advertising Hall of Fame.

“I’ve managed multimillion-dollar budgets over the years, and answering to corporate owners, which is always tough,” she said. “Because no matter what the market says, they always want an increase.”

She has cited payments on the county’s roughly $800 million debt as a concern.

“Knox County’s looming debt coming due and other budget issues concerned me to the point that I agreed to run for … At-Large Seat 11 when asked by a number of grassroots Republicans — who are equally concerned about the possibility of the Commission proposing a hefty property-tax increase,” she told KnoxTNToday.

“My vision for our county over the next five years is to rein in the spending of our $1.2 billion budget, by first determining where our greatest needs are for taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”

Tombras told the News Sentinel that County Commission serves residents of all political persuasions and that she would listen to constituents, possibly in regular community meetings.

“We really need to listen to our constituents,” Tombras told the News Sentinel. “They know what’s going on. They know what they need. They’re very reasonable. Our clients are our citizens. They’re the ones paying the bill.”