Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean Running For Governor

NASHVILLE, TN — Former two-term Metro Nashville mayor Karl Dean, as widely expected, will run for governor in 2018. Dean is the first Democrat to make his candidacy official, joining Republican State Sen. Mark Green in formally announcing his intentions.

Dean served as Mayor of Metro Nashville from 2007 to 2015, overseeing the city during the start of its so-called "It City" era, a period of increased visibility, recognition by the coastal press and population growth. He led the city during the devastating the 2010 flood and the recovery from the Great Recession. Perhaps his signature acheivement was approval, construction and completion of the $600 million Music City Center.

An admitted pro-business moderate Democrat, Dean was well-known for his use of tax incentives to draw and retain business in Davidson County, including a 15-year property tax abatement for LifePoint Hospitals to relocate three miles across Old Hickory Boulevard from Brentwood. Breaking further from the left wing of his party, Dean also supported the expansion of charter schools, though he drew the line at vouchers.

Dean's pro-business chops are so well-known they are immortalized with a plaque outside, of all places, Burger Up's East Nashville location.

“I think I’m a moderate,” Dean told The Tennessean. “My sense is good things happen when you’re in the middle of the road. That’s where you can find agreement and move things forward. ... I think everybody would say Karl Dean is really pro-business. I’ve been criticized for that. I’ve been praised for it. And I’ve been ignored for it, I guess. But I have been unabashedly pro-business and I remain so. In Nashville, that has shown to work.”

Dean will try to follow the path of another moderate, business-friendly, Northern-born Democrat who moved from Metro mayor to governor in Phil Bredesen. Current Gov. Bill Haslam — who is term-limited — is another moderate, pro-business former mayor; the Republican served as Knoxville's mayor prior to his election to the state's top spot.

Dean does have a little bit of recent history on his side as well. Tennesseans haven't elected successive governors from the same political party since the Buford Ellington-Frank Clement swaps of the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore, Tennessee tends to elect governors of the political party that doesn't hold the White House. Republican Lamar Alexander won re-election in 1982 while Ronald Reagan was president, but the last non-incumbent winner who was the same party as the president was Winfield Dunn, a Republican who won the 1970 election while Richard Nixon was at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Vanderbilt political science professor John Geer told The Tennessean that Dean must be considered credible. Dean would be, perhaps, the first formidable Democrat to run statewide in Tennessee since Harold Ford Jr. ran for Senate against Bob Corker in 2006. Mike McWherter, son of popular Democratic governor Ned Ray McWherter, ran for governor against Haslam in 2010 and lost by more than 30 percentage points. Otherwise, Democratic nominees for state office in the past decade have been unknowns or fringe candidates, some of whom were ultimately disavowed by the state party apparatus.

“His candidacy has to be taken very seriously,” Geer said. “He was a very successful mayor. He governed the city with lots of applause over a period of eight years. We know that he was popular at that time. The other part of this story that makes Dean a formidable candidate is that midterm elections tend to work against the party who controls the White House. There’s going to be in all likelihood some backlash against the incumbent party and that’s going to help Dean.”

Dean, though well-known in Nashville and the home counties, will have to boost his name recognition in rural Tennessee, where some counties voted for Donald Trump by a 4:1 margin in 2016.

"I get small-town life. I grew up in a small town. It’s not something that’s foreign to me," Dean told The Tennessean. Dean came of age in Gardner, Mass., a former mill town of 20,000 people that was once known as "Chair City" due to its prodigious furniture production.

Nevertheless, Dean expects an uphill battle in increasingly deep-red Tennessee, but the early start allows him to start raising money.

Other Democrats said to be considered getting in the 2018 race are State House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh and businessman and Democratic fundraiser Bill Freeman, who finished third in Nashville's mayoral election in 2015. Beyond Green, Republicans who might jump in include House Speaker Beth Harwell, U.S. Rep. Diane Black, former Economic and Community Development Commissioner Randy Boyd, Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris and firebrand former State Rep. Joe Carr.

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