Independent · Tennessee Governor’s Race · 2026
DAVID HATLEY
Built Not
Bought.
No Party. No Donors. Just Tennessee.
Grew up in East Tennessee with nothing handed to him. Built nine companies, kept every job here when every competitor moved overseas, and shared equity with the workers who built it alongside him. Thirty years of proof. Now he’s running for Governor.
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9
COMPANIES BUILT
750
Tennessee Jobs
740K
Sq Ft of TN Manufacturing
#1
Hot Tub Mfr. in America
11
Patents Held
30 yrs
BUILDING IN TENNESSEE
America's Bash 10th year anniversary hosted by:
The Hatley's--
Tested in Tennessee
The story Tennessee
hasn't heard yet.
His Story
No prerequisites.
No safety net.
David Hatley grew up in Elizabethton, Tennessee — Carter County — with no inheritance, no industry connections, and no one handing him a roadmap. Two parents who weren’t always present. Moving when the rent ran out. What he had was a ZIP code that taught him early that nobody was coming to save him — and a mind that refused to accept that as a ceiling.
"No prerequisites. No safety net. Just Tennessee tenacity — and thirty years of proof that it works."
WHY HE’S RUNNING
Politicians Promise. Hatley Delivers.
There is a difference between studying economic development and creating it. David has created it — for thirty years, in Tennessee, while others were still talking about it.
Built, Not Bought
No party. No donors. No one to answer to but Tennessee.
David is running as an independent because he has no interest in owing anything to anyone except the people of Tennessee. The track record speaks. It doesn’t need a party label.
The Hardest Working Person in the Room
Tennessee deserves a Governor who outworks the job.
He showed up first and left last for thirty years. He rebuilt from nothing after 2008. He will bring that same relentless work ethic to the Governor’s office every single day.
Where I Stand
David's Passions.
Proven in practice.
These are what David fights for — grounded in his life, his community, and thirty years of watching what holds Tennessee back.
— Affordable Housing
Housing: Make It Cheaper to Build the Smaller House. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Tennessee is roughly 120,000 starter homes short right now. The costs that kill a starter home are mostly fixed. Infrastructure requirements and permitting delays add up to 25% to the price of a new starter home — and they cost a developer about the same whether he builds 1,400 square feet or 4,000. So he builds 4,000. That’s not greed. That’s arithmetic.
David Hatley would change the arithmetic two ways.
Infrastructure grants with conditions. The state helps pay for the water, sewer, and road work a city would otherwise push onto the developer. In exchange, the community agrees to set aside 5 to 10% of every new development for homes priced at $250,000 or less, and to move inspections and approvals faster to avoid long, drawn-out, and expensive new developments. Cities get the infrastructure they need. Developers stop paying for it. Working families get houses they can actually buy.
Roll back the code changes that priced people out. Tennessee has adopted pieces of the international energy and electrical codes that add real cost to every new home without making it meaningfully safer. Tennessee should decide how Tennessee builds, not politics from DC.
— Independent Auditor
An Independent Auditor Who Answers to You. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Tennessee’s chief financial watchdog isn’t elected by Tennesseans. The Comptroller is chosen by the General Assembly — the same body that appropriates the money — and serves a two-year term, meaning reselection comes up every other year. Most states give their auditor four years or more.
The results show up in the headlines. A forensic audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools flagged roughly $54 million in transactions with signs of fraud, waste, or abuse. A county audit found twelve findings, seven of them repeats from the year before. Children in state custody sleeping in DCS offices, years after officials announced the practice was ending.
David Hatley would create an independent, nonpartisan State Auditor — elected statewide, just like 24 other states, required to hold a CPA or equivalent credentials, with authority to conduct forensic and performance audits, subpoena records and testimony, and protect whistleblowers who come forward.
The existing audit divisions and their funding move to the new office, rather than being duplicated. And the auditor gets audited too: outside peer review, published methodology, public tracking of whether agencies actually fix what gets found.
— Checkbook Online
Follow the Money. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Tennessee has a spending checkbook. The state’s own page warns that the data is unaudited, covers only payments through the central accounting system, and that a payment isn’t the same thing as a contract. So a taxpayer can see money going out without ever learning what the state agreed to buy, for how much, or whether it got delivered.
The gaps show up in the record. A judge had to order the state to release consulting documents it had paid $3.8 million for. A voucher vendor’s contract ceiling rose by $356 million. Nearly half a billion dollars in no-bid pandemic contracts, most of it examined only after the fact by reporters.
David Hatley would rebuild the portal Tennessee already has — not a second website. Every legally disclosable contract, grant, amendment, and payment posted within 30 days, with the recipient, the agency, the funding source, and a plain-English description of what the money bought. Searchable, downloadable, linked to the underlying contract.
Agencies certify their own numbers. An independent audit checks them. And it goes into law, so the next administration can’t quietly turn it off.
— Ban Contractors’ Contributions to Politicians
End Pay to Play. Click to Learn More
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Tennessee has no rule stopping a company from writing campaign checks to the same officials who control its state contracts. A registered lobbyist can’t donate to legislators. A contractor employing a lobbyist can’t donate during session. But a company bidding on, holding, or renewing a state contract can generally give year-round, right through the bidding period.
The record shows why that matters. A $26.5 million no-bid COVID testing contract to a company with no testing experience, pitched by a political consultant, unwound at a cost of $5.9 million. A voucher vendor’s contract ceiling raised by $356 million. A prison contractor fined tens of millions by the state and renewed anyway.
David Hatley would ban contributions from significant state contractors — the company, its owners, its senior officers, and the PACs they control — while they’re seeking or performing state work. And he’d end no-bid contracts outside documented emergencies, where speed is the point, but secrecy isn’t.
Contractors stay free to speak, lobby, testify, and organize. What ends is writing checks to the people who decide who gets paid.
— Data Centers
Moratorium on Data Centers. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
David Hatley would pause new approvals until Tennessee writes real rules, and ends the giveaways: no PILOTs, no abatements. At least half the new tax revenue a data center generates would go directly to cutting property taxes for homeowners in the county hosting it.
Tennessee has 62 data centers operating and 16 more proposed. Under current law, a company qualifies for a major sales-tax exemption by investing $100 million and creating 15 permanent jobs — roughly $6.7 million in capital per required job. It then buys electricity at a 1.5% tax rate and negotiates a county PILOT that can hold down its property taxes for twenty years.
The rest is cost discipline. If a project needs 500 megawatts, the company pays to build that capacity — not the family in Kingsport whose bill is already climbing. Water use gets disclosed and fully paid for. And the county decides whether it wants the project at all.
Build here. Pay your way. Be welcome. But for now, pause all new ones coming. Data center construction until we have real rules that benefit Tennesseans, not out-of-state corporations.
— Ban Flock Cameras
Flock cameras are getting abused far too often across our great state. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Flock cameras are getting abused far too often across our great state. David Hatley will be tough on fighting crime, and while Flock cameras are helping solve more crimes, the current system is flawed and invasive. Corrupt people are violating the privacy of our average citizens. In addition, people are frequently getting stopped by police when the system mistakenly identifies them as a criminal. This has to stop.
— Child Predators
Life Without Parole for Repeat Child Predators. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Tennessee already has tough sentencing rules for sex offenses. What it doesn’t consistently have is permanent incapacitation. In many repeat cases, the offender still receives a sentence measured in years — serves it and walks out.
The cases are on the record. A Knox County man served roughly fifteen years for a serious offense against his own two-year-old, was released, registered, and was later convicted of offenses against his seven-year-old grandchild. Another man with a prior conviction involving a 12-year-old was convicted again in a case involving a different minor and received eight years.
The research is consistent: an offender with a prior sexual-offense conviction reoffends at roughly twice the rate of a first-time offender over fifteen years.
David Hatley would make life without parole mandatory for an adult convicted of a second serious child sex offense committed after the first conviction became final. No parole. No sentence credits. No work release.
The law would be written narrowly and carefully — a short list of the most serious offenses, proved on the record — so it holds up and applies the same in every county.
— Literacy
Literacy: The Foundation of Everything Else. Click to Learn More
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Tennessee has made real progress on reading — 23rd nationally in fourth grade, up from 35th. That’s genuine, and the people who did it deserve credit. But progress isn’t success. Only 32% of Tennessee fourth graders and 32% of eighth graders reached NAEP proficiency in reading. Roughly two-thirds did not. We have now fallen behind Mississippi in literacy, who was almost dead last a decade ago.
The adult numbers are harder. About one in five Tennessee adults reads below a third-grade level. In the Appalachian counties, more than two in three read below eighth grade.
David Hatley believes reading is one of the cornerstones of success, and a lack of it leads to a life of crime, drugs, poverty, and discrimination.
David Hatley’s goal is top ten in reading in the nation within four years, measured against NAEP — a national yardstick the state can’t grade itself on.
Getting there means putting full-time reading coaches inside the hundred lowest-performing elementary schools and leaving them there. Requiring every elementary teacher to demonstrate competency in the science of reading before licensure. Replacing the retention debate with mandatory daily intervention for kids who aren’t reading by third grade. Doubling the Grow Your Own apprenticeship in rural districts.
And treating adult literacy as the workforce problem it is — paired with TCAT training, at no cost to the worker.
— CTE Programs
Career and Technical Education: Build the Workforce. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
I’ve spent 25 years hiring welders, machinists, technicians, and managers. About 750 people work for me across manufacturing, industrial, retail, and hospitality. Every one of them came through some version of Tennessee’s workforce pipeline. This isn’t theory for me.
Tennessee has quietly built one of the best CTE systems in the country. Our TCATs are nationally ranked, enrollment is up 19% in a single year, and employers rate graduates satisfactory or better 96% of the time. That deserves credit.
It’s still not enough. Healthcare will be short 15,000 workers by the mid-2030s. For every five skilled tradespeople retiring, only two are replacing them. And our TCATs have waitlists in exactly the programs employers need most — welding, mechatronics, practical nursing, industrial maintenance, HVAC.
End the waitlists in those five programs. Pay TCAT instructors competitively, because you can’t scale a program you can’t staff. Cover credential exam fees for every high school student who earns one. Double registered apprenticeships in four years.
A welder making $75,000 at 22 with no debt is a success story, not a fallback.
— Recidivism
Turn Criminals into Responsible Citizens. Click to Learn More
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About 95% of everyone in a Tennessee prison comes home eventually — roughly 12,000 people a year. Within three years, more than five in ten are back in the system through some sort of violation. That isn’t a corrections statistic. It’s the next robbery, the next assault, the next family that didn’t have to become a victim.
David Hatley’s plan begins reentry 180 days before the gate opens, not after. Every eligible person leaves with identification in hand, medication and care lined up, a verified address, transportation, and an appointment already on the calendar — a job interview, an apprenticeship, a class, a treatment slot. Mental-health and addiction screening starts at the first contact with the system, not at intake. Drug, mental-health, and veterans courts expand to reach every judicial district, with treatment capacity funded alongside them.
Texas and Virginia built versions of this and cut crime and lowered cost.
Every program gets measured on new crimes prevented. The ones that don’t work get shut down.
When people leave prison with no job and no purpose, they reoffend. David Hadley will cut recidivism in half by giving them a path to work and a reason to stay on the right track. When former offenders have jobs, crimes go down, and communities get safer.
— Crime Policy
Public Safety: Put Violent Criminals Behind Bars . Click to Learn More
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Tennessee’s violent crime rate runs about 65% above the national average. But the number that explains it is this one: only 39% of violent crimes here get solved — an eleven-point drop in a decade. Six out of every ten murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults end with nobody caught. The victim gets no justice. The offender stays on the street and does it again.
David Hatley will be the toughest governor this state has seen on crime, because that is what it will take to get us back to safe. His plan puts the money where cases actually get solved: clearing the crime-lab backlog, hiring detectives and forensic scientists, expanding TBI’s violent-crime team, protecting witnesses, and giving rural sheriffs regional investigators and same-day state assistance. He will significantly increase the clearance rate of crimes, ensure priority evidence processed in 30 days, and results published every quarter.
— Drugs
Take the Traffickers Down, Pull Tennesseans Back Up. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Tennessee is the seventh-worst state in America for overdose deaths, with a rate 52% above the national average. In 2024 we lost roughly 2,500 people — more than car crashes and suicides combined. Fentanyl caused two-thirds of them. Our current DC Politicians are responsible for this devastation in our state.
Deaths did fall 34, but we need to be honest about why: naloxone went over the counter, treatment expanded nationally, the supply shifted. Other states did the hard work. Tennessee caught the wave.
Meanwhile the TBI’s drug division has 48 agents covering 95 counties and three of the busiest trafficking corridors in America.
First we need to triple that division to about 150. Florida-style SAFE grants so state money reaches local task forces chasing large drug traffickers — not the kid on the corner who gets replaced in three days. Clear the crime lab backlog. Add a financial crimes unit, because cartels run on cash.
Second, we need medication-assisted treatment in every county jail — people walk out without it and die in the parking lot. Naloxone everywhere. Real treatment within an hour’s drive of every Tennessean. Drug courts in every district.
Finally, we need one public set of books for the billion dollars in settlement money.
— Farmland
Tennessee Soil Belongs to Tennesseans. Click to Learn More
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Tennessee is losing farmland and forestland at roughly 240 acres a day — about 87,600 acres a year, the equivalent of 515 average Tennessee farms. At the same time, the state has limited ability to see who actually controls the land being bought. A deed shows an LLC. It doesn’t show the parent company, the trust, or the government behind it.
Tennessee has already passed real restrictions on adversarial foreign ownership. David Hatley would close what’s left open. Buyers of farmland and land near military bases, water systems, and energy infrastructure would disclose the actual people and entities in control. The restrictions would cover long-term leases and options, not just deeds — because nationally, most foreign-held acreage acquired in a recent year came through leases rather than purchases. The Attorney General would get subpoena power and the authority to unwind illegal deals.
And farmers get a real alternative to selling. Conservation easements, succession and estate planning help, and farm viability grants — voluntary, at three levels of commitment, so a family isn’t forced to choose between a permanent restriction and a developer’s offer.
— Parents’ Rights
A Parents Bill of Rights. Click to Learn More
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Tennessee already gives parents substantial rights over their children’s education. The problem is that they’re scattered across dozens of statutes with different procedures — the Department of Education’s own summary of parental rights runs eighteen pages and says outright that it isn’t complete. A parent who wants to see a reading list, object to a survey, or find out why they weren’t told something often can’t determine who to ask.
David Hatley would consolidate those rights into one law and give parents one place to use them.
That means access to textbooks, course outlines, and instructional materials. Notification when a school employee suspects a crime has been committed against your child. Consent before graphic sexual content, and the right to remove your child from instruction you object to. Discipline for any employee who tells a child to keep something from their parents.
I would create within the Attorney General’s office and advocate for parental rights. To assist the Attorney General and protect parental rights, I would establish a single portal with a tracking number, a seven-day response, and a 30-day answer in writing, so a disagreement gets resolved instead of turning into a lawsuit three years later.
Rights on paper aren’t rights. Parents deserve a system that actually works.’
— Protect Our Kids
Protect Kids Online, Hold Big Tech Accountable Click to Learn More
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Nearly half of American teenagers are online almost constantly. Seventy-seven percent of high school students use social media several times a day. Tennessee families have paid for what happens next — a Hendersonville mother who lost her 16-year-old to a fentanyl-laced pill arranged through disappearing messages, parents who reported harassment and exploitation and got no response at all.
Tennessee already requires parental consent before a minor opens a social media account. David Hatley would give that law teeth and give parents real control.
Minors’ accounts private by default. Unknown adults blocked from messaging a child unless a parent says otherwise. Parents able to turn off the personalized feed, the autoplay, the streaks, the 2 a.m. notifications, and the in-app purchases. Hard limits on selling children’s data or targeting ads at them.
And when a parent reports a threat — sexual coercion, a drug sale, a dangerous challenge — the platform has a deadline to respond, evidence to preserve, and an Attorney General who can monitor whether the safety tools work as advertised.
— Rural Healthcare
Rural Access to Health Care. Click to Learn More
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David Hatley believes we must get ER care close to all Tennesseans, because the difference in driving hours or minutes is lives lost. We must look at areas where we have already done this successfully in Tennessee and expand on that, and stop the closing of our rural hospitals.
Healthcare should be about keeping people healthy, not profiting off them getting sick. David Hatley will expand prevention, improve rural access, and invest in mental health and addiction recovery.
— Abortion
Pro-life. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
This one is personal, and I’ll say why plainly. I’m pro-life. That comes from my own family — from watching a very small baby fight to live in his first weeks, and from the years my wife and I spent on a waiting list hoping to adopt. That wait taught me something I still believe: there is a home out there for every child.
— Second Amendment
Believe in the right to bear arms. Click to Learn More
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I believe in the right to bear arms and protect ourselves and family. Tennessee’s current laws say that, and I would keep them as written today.
— Immigration
My focus is safety. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
Start with the basics: without a secure border, you don’t really have a country. Living here is a privilege, not a free-for-all. Veterans died protecting this country, and we owe them borders that mean something and laws that get enforced.
My focus is safety. If someone is here illegally and commits violent crimes, they shouldn’t be in our communities, and the state should be working to see they aren’t.
— Protecting Women’s Sports
I believe in protecting the integrity of the game and the privacy of the athletes who play it. Click to Learn More
Click to Learn More
I believe in protecting the integrity of the game and the privacy of the athletes who play it. Women’s spaces should be for women — and that includes locker rooms and teams.
Biological sex at birth is a fundamental reality that doesn’t change. Saying so isn’t unkind. It’s about fairness. Biology matters enormously in athletic competition, and letting male-bodied athletes compete in women’s categories takes opportunities away from girls who have trained their whole lives for them.
Tennessee law should reflect that, so women and girls keep a level playing field, safe locker rooms, and the dignity of competing in the sports built for them.
Coming Soon
Join the Movement
Build Tennessee.
Ten coalitions. One movement.
This campaign is built on the people who actually make Tennessee work — manufacturers, teachers, farmers, veterans, first responders, healthcare workers, small business owners, and the next generation of builders. Be a part of making a change in what you are passionate about and help us Build Tennessee.
Women in Business
Women Build Tennessee
Women business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders across Tennessee — building companies, creating jobs, and leading the next chapter of this state’s economy.
Public Safety
First Responders Build Tennessee
Police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and their families — standing behind the people who run toward danger.
Manufacturing & Trades
Builders Build Tennessee
Manufacturers, fabricators, engineers, and trade workers — the people who make things in Tennessee rallied behind a state that makes more.
Faith Builds Tennessee
Tennessee’s faith communities mobilized to serve first — the hands and feet of the movement.
Youth & Workforce
Youth Builds Tennessee
College students, TCAT graduates, young professionals, and apprentices — the next generation of Tennessee builders.
Agriculture
Farmers Build Tennessee
Farmers, FFA members, young agricultural producers — keeping family land in family hands.
Small Business
Makers Build Tennessee
Small business owners, shop operators, craftspeople, and entrepreneurs — the people who sign the front of the check and never stop building.
Veterans & Service
Veterans Build Tennessee
Veterans, military spouses, National Guard members, and veteran-owned businesses — at the front of the movement, in leadership and service.
Education
Teachers Build Tennessee
Teachers, administrators, and education staff — given a movement of their own, built on respect, not rhetoric.
Rural Health
Healthcare Builds Tennessee
Nurses, physicians, aides, and rural clinic staff — the healthcare workers holding rural Tennessee together.
Find your coalition. Join the movement.
Ten coalitions. One word. Built to last.
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David's book.
His story, in his words.
Before the campaign, there was a book. Tested in Tennessee is David’s account of building nine companies from nothing in East Tennessee — the failures, the rebuilds, the 2008 collapse and the rebuild, the workers who made it all possible, and the conviction that brought him to this race. Download it free. No strings attached.
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Tennesseans shouldn’t have to pay someone to work hard for them — or to be their Governor. David is funding this campaign himself. No donors. No strings. No one to answer to but the people of Tennessee.
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