Democrat Beau Hawk and Republican Betsy Henderson are squaring off in the Knox County mayor’s race. The winner will succeed Glenn Jacobs, who could not run because of term limits.

Hawk and Henderson had roughly the same amount of cash on hand for the final push to Election Day

Henderson, a school-board member, finished first in a three-way GOP primary with 44.7 percent of the vote, defeating County Commissioners Larsen Jay and Kim Frazier. President of the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Central Labor Council, Hawk was unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Henderson rode a no-tax-increase platform to her victory, a position that has enabled a succession of Republican wins in mayoral elections this century. Knox County has not elected a Democrat as the top county administrator since Tommy Schumpert won in 1998, when the position was called the county executive, and the property-tax rate hasn’t increased since 1999, though the population has grown 35.4 percent to more than 517,000 since 2000.

In his bid to reverse the county’s electoral current, Hawk is emphasizing the need to improve accountability and transparency in government by increasing engagement with the public. 

The county mayor manages the general government, but that’s a small portion of the overall county government. The school system, the Sheriff’s Office and various fee offices such as Trustee, County Clerk and Register of Deeds operate independently of the mayor and Knox County Commission.

The mayor’s office does assemble the county budget for Knox County Commission’s approval, however, and recommends the property-tax rate. This year’s budget amounts to about $1.1 billion.

The county is facing financial challenges. 

The county’s debt service — $86 million and growing — must be paid before anything else. How to cover those mounting debt payments, which are projected to balloon to about $110 million in fiscal year 2030-31, is a key issue in this year’s election. 

School funding has become an issue as well, as County Commission took $4 million in property-tax revenues from the schools last month to pay for general-government employee raises.

Knox County’s population continues to swell, so in addition to managing rising debt payments, the next mayor will have to figure out how to fund the infrastructure needed to accommodate the influx of new residents. As it stands, the county can afford to repave only half the road miles necessary to keep up with maintenance needs.

In defiance of the county’s red tilt, Hawk raised more money than Henderson, $100,589 to $99,635, during the April 26-June 30 reporting period. His financial disclosure forms show he raised most of his money from small donors, though he also took in $13,300 from 11 union organizations. Henderson reported 51 individual donations of $1,000 or more. Several prominent developers donated to her campaign, despite her opposition to more intensive development.

The candidates had roughly the same amount of cash on hand for the final push to Election Day — $67,054 for Henderson and $65,930 for Hawk.

Here’s a look at the two contenders. (The profile of Henderson has been updated from our primary coverage.)

Beau Hawk

Running for county mayor wasn’t on Hawk’s radar before last year. He had been delegating the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Central Labor Council’s political activities to others so he could focus on other union work. But, he said, people began reaching out to him about running.

“I just started thinking about it,” he said recently at the Labor Council’s North Knoxville office. “There’s a lot of things I’d like to see done differently, and I’d like to see more of a voice for the community in local government. I’d like to see more trust and participation (and) engagement with local government.”

He said accountability and transparency make up “the foundation for resolving a lot of the big issues we have in the county.”

Hawk said his work running a large organization — the Labor Council has doubled in size to nearly 40 affiliated unions representing thousands of workers during his two years as president — has qualified him to be county mayor.

“I’m not a stranger to managing staff and a budget and those kinds of things,” he said.

A large part of his job is working with industry, educational institutions and other partners on large projects. For example, he’s worked with the East Tennessee Economic Council, which fosters collaboration among stakeholders in the federal missions in Oak Ridge, and its Tennessee Nuclear Network initiative.

“I’m proficient at macro-scale organization and management, having a vision for a broader-type project,” he said.

Hawk said his bipartisan approach to working with partners would help the county form stronger partnerships with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other institutions. His goal would be to create a stable environment for investment, particularly in technology, and creating more workforce pipelines to provide good jobs for residents.

Unlike Henderson, Hawk hasn’t pledged to never raise taxes, but he isn’t inclined to seek a property-tax increase, at least in his first year in office.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to come out of the gate with a property-tax increase that would increase the tax burden for working people right now because people are struggling so much,” he said, adding that any tax-increase proposal would require transparency and buy-in from residents.

His concern for workers extends to County Commission’s recent move to shift $4 million in revenues from the school system to the general fund to pay for bigger employee raises. In response, the school system is cutting teaching positions and cutting pay for many district employees.

“I’m definitely supportive of paying county employees better, but obviously I don’t think that the way we moved it from the education budget was the best way to go about it,” he said.

Hawk also wants to conduct a thorough assessment of the conditions of bridges and roads throughout the county. Development, he said, should be directed toward areas where the infrastructure can support it. 

“Growth is going to happen whether we like it or not, and people are going to come here whether we like it or not,” he said, emphasizing that he would encourage homeowners’ associations and developers to work together to build a consensus on projects. “I don’t want to see projects railroaded through the Planning Commission that the community that’s being impacted by the development doesn’t want to see.”

Hawk, 35, grew up in Chattanooga. His mother cleaned houses and he left school early — he earned a GED — to go to work. He was a maintenance worker and then a truck driver, and joined the Teamsters, which hired him and transferred him to Knoxville. He then joined the Iron Workers Local 384.

Hawk was named to the Labor Council’s executive board and worked with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation on spending federal funds allocated by the Biden administration for abandoned mine reclamation. He won a Department of Energy Community Workforce Readiness Accelerator fellowship, but the program has been in limbo since Donald Trump was elected president.

This is Hawk’s first foray into elective politics. He said that it’s been an “overwhelmingly positive experience” and that he hasn’t had a negative conversation with voters he’s encountered.

The campaign was rocked when the News Sentinel reported about an article from 2020 at the online site Orinoco Tribune about a march in Caracas, Venezuela, in support of then-President Nicolas Maduro. Hawk was pictured with a contingent of other foreigners marching with a crowd of supporters of Maduro’s left-wing authoritarian government.

The trip was arranged by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), a self-described Marxist-Leninist group that works closely with the Teamsters union. Hawk wrote articles for an FRSO publication and represented the group at a University of Tennessee event.

Asked about the report, Hawk said he went to Venezuela as part of his role with the Teamsters and has had nothing to do with FRSO since leaving the Teamsters later in 2020.

“Obviously it was dumb when it comes to optics,” he said, adding that he was transparent about it when he decided to run for office. “I think it’s been blown up into something much bigger than it is, and it’s irrelevant to Knox County.”

Hawk said since rising to a labor leadership role he has deliberately taken a nonpartisan approach to building solidarity. He’s counting on voters who want a government that works for working people.

“Do you want leadership and government that is worried about whatever the culture war of the day is, or somebody that’s actually focused on addressing the real issues that are impacting your life every day and actually understands the kind of issues that you’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis?” he said. “I want to be the mayor for all Knox Countians, regardless of whether they have the same beliefs as me, the same political leanings, and (whether) they look like me.”

Betsy Henderson

During her primary victory speech on May 5, Henderson said Knox County could become a “beacon of freedom.”

“As Republicans, we believe that when government gets out of the way, families and small businesses thrive,” she said.

Henderson won the GOP primary by positioning herself as the only true conservative in the field, pledging that she will never propose a tax increase.

“I think it’s pretty simple,” she said. “It’s about prioritizing a few things, because if everything’s a priority, nothing is a priority. It’s about cutting back and pushing for a lean, efficient budget that prioritizes needs over wants and just eliminating that wasteful spending.”

The primary put party unity to the test, however. A text thread exposed a rift between the right wing of the party and its more moderate members, including Jay and Commissioners Terry Hill and Gina Oster. Jay, Hill and Oster are not among contributors to Henderson’s campaign.

Henderson has acknowledged the county’s growing debt burden but said prioritizing roads, good schools and safe neighborhoods while cutting spending in other areas if necessary would enable the county to move forward without a tax increase.

Henderson has developed “The Crossroads Plan,” which she calls a conservative blueprint for the county.

“I developed the Knox Crossroads Plan because Knox County is at a crossroad, and we must ensure our best days are still ahead,” she wrote in the introduction to the plan. “County government should be a good steward of your tax dollars and a partner to families, not a burden. As chair of one of the largest school districts in Tennessee, I worked to reduce bureaucracy, invest more directly in classrooms and control spending, and return to the basics, which has resulted in improved outcomes for our children. That experience matters.”

Highlights of the plan include her no-tax-increase pledge, debt reduction, transparency in decision making, supporting small businesses, recruiting companies that “align with our values,” providing a “world-class education” while advocating for school choice, and supporting law enforcement.

Through the plan, Henderson expresses a wariness about development: “A growing and thriving community is a blessing, but reckless, unchecked development is not. We must take a proactive, conservative approach — one that ensures economic opportunity without sacrificing our identity.”

 She has proposed forming a Spending Taxpayer Accountability and Reform (STAR) Commission to identify areas where spending can be cut, citing funding for nonprofits as one possible target.

“This is going to be a group of small-business owners and operators who know how to balance a budget, how to deliver results and provide services at an affordable price,” Henderson said. “I want that committee to really do a top-to-bottom review of our spending, of our debts, of the operations, so that way they can identify those places to cut back.”

Henderson was first elected to the school board in a 2020 special election to complete Hill’s unexpired term after Hill won the County Commission District 6 seat. She was reelected in 2022. She said her time on the school board representing Northwest Knox County has prepared her for being mayor.

She was an outspoken critic of public-health mandates imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing to lift the board’s mask mandate in 2020-21 and leading the board’s fight against a court-ordered mask mandate. 

A school-choice advocate, she drew criticism in 2025 when she testified in favor of school vouchers before a Tennessee House education committee, despite the school board’s opposition to the program.

“I clearly do not back away from challenges,” she said. “When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Promises made, promises kept over the past five years of my service on the school board.”

She noted that she was on the search committee that recommended hiring Jon Rysewyk as superintendent, and that literacy and math scores have increased during the past four years.

“People always know where I stand,” Henderson said. “I’m always honest about what I’m going to do, and then I deliver those results.”

Henderson, 47, grew up in Louisville, in Blount County, and attended Maryville city schools. She graduated from the University of Tennessee with a double major in journalism and public relations, and while in school she had a junior-year internship in the office of then-U.S. Rep. John J. “Jimmy” Duncan. After graduation, she worked for Duncan and Florida Rep. Connie Mack IV in Washington, D.C. She and her husband moved back to Knox County in 2014.

Henderson became active as a parent volunteer and room mom (the Hendersons have two children) and eventually became president of the Hardin Valley Elementary PTO before running for the 6th District school-board seat.

She had not run a countywide campaign until the primary, but she said her grassroots effort was strong and put her over the top. She has knocked on doors, attended meet-and-greet events in people’s homes and conducted a tour of small businesses.

When Hawk’s trip to Venezuela came to light, Henderson and her allies, including Jacobs, swiftly denounced her opponent.

“It’s hard to believe that someone seeking office in Knox County would support such an evil government that has fueled the drug trade, violent criminal gangs, and human misery. It’s against everything we as Americans stand for. If you want to know the difference between the two candidates for mayor, it’s simple: I know the difference between right and unspeakable wrong, and I will always stand on the side of freedom.”

Henderson said the race is about vision and leadership, and she’s excited about leading Knox County into the future. 

“Knox County is at a crossroads and we need strong conservative leaders in these positions to keep our taxes low, ensure smart growth and make sure that we’re preserving our freedoms and way of life,” Henderson said.