First-time candidate Lee Reeves has secured the Republican nomination in the race for outgoing Rep. Sam Whitson’s state House District 65 seat.
“I have been peaceful — I have been calm about this for weeks now because I know that we have put everything on the field,” Reeves said at a campaign celebration Thursday at The Board Room in Franklin.
With District 65’s Rep. Sam Whitson retiring, three conservatives are duking it out in Williamson County's Republican primary
“When we even heard about this race in the beginning, I prayed. … I prayed that if I'm supposed to do this, that the right people get put into my path, and that if I'm not, that door gets shut and locked so I don’t kick it down. And I'm gonna tell you, at every single pivot point we have had the right people show up in this race.”
Cheers erupted as the final unofficial results rolled in with Reeves at 3,141 votes — just less than 100 ahead of the second-place finisher Brian Beathard.
Reeves’ wife Claire was the Republican candidate for the Williamson County School Board District 9. She and other school board candidates also held their election parties at The Board Room. (Read about the school board election here.) She teared up while talking about how she had been so focused on her husband's race that she hadn’t even prepared a speech for herself. Franklin Alderman Beverly Berger, who served as Reeves' treasurer, and state Rep. Jake McCalmon (R-Franklin) were also on hand to celebrate.
Lee Reeves hugs his wife, District 9 school board candidate Claire Reeves, at their joint watch party, Aug. 1, 2024
Lee Reeves faced two other Republican challengers in the primary: Williamson County Commission Chair Brian Beathard and Michelle Foreman, who previously lost races for Nashville’s Metro Council in 2019 and state House District 59 in 2022.
"We ran with integrity and honor, the same integrity and honor that Sam Whitson brought [and that] Charles Sargent [brought]," Beathard said to cheers from his supporters at his watch party at The Factory at Franklin. "We knocked on 16,000 doors, we put out 1,000 yard signs, we stuffed thousands of envelopes, we had over 20 meet-and-greets, and we never sent out one piece of negative advertising."Â
Brian Beathard at his watch party at The Factory at Franklin
Those supporters included local leaders such as Williamson County Mayor Rogers Anderson, who served as Beathard's treasurer, and Whitson, who endorsed Beathard early on in the race.
Reeves' 3,141 votes ultimately beat out Beathard, who garnered 3,046, and Foreman, who received 2,178 in third place.
Early voting results, which were released when polls closed on Thursday, revealed that 10.5 percent of registered Williamson County voters cast ballots during the early voting period. Beathard earned an early lead with 1,824 votes during early voting, while Reeves earned 1,722 and Foreman had 1,158.
Only 8,365 voters cast their ballots in the District 65 race in the primary overall, based on the unofficial results. The total number of Williamson County voters in the Aug. 1 election has yet to be released.
Early in the primary, Reeves became the target of an article by The Tennessee Conservative that alleged that the candidate “houses hundreds of illegal immigrants” in a Texas property he owns, allegations that Reeves called a "false" story" by a "blogger."
Reeves had the backing of Gov. Bill Lee and other top Republicans including Republican Caucus Chair Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby). Beathard’s supporters decried an influx of “dark money” from political action committees to influence the election in the lead-up to the primary. Several PACs spent hundreds of thousands in support of Reeves' stance in favor of the governor’s plans for school vouchers. Both Beathard and Foreman were not considered pro-voucher candidates.
Swann, Whitson, Johnson and Jernigan are all in their final terms as state lawmakers
"All the leadership in this county supported Brian Beathard, and it's hard to overcome the negative untruths that this money bought," Whitson tells Scene sister publication The News. "It's a sad day for our state, and I'm disappointed in our governor for being a part of this.
"To be supported by $1 million of dark money and use that to trash a decent guy; it was just trashing a good guy and not about any policy, that's what is disturbing to me," Whitson continues. "This is all about vouchers, and the winning side; I cannot imagine that they're proud of this victory and how they won. It's not that they won, it's how they won that I think is disturbing."
Whitson had previously been a key holdout among state Republicans in the conversation around school choice, so whoever ends up in his seat could play a factor in the next general assembly’s strategy to pass the legislation.
Now Reeves will face off against Democratic candidate LaRhonda Williams in the general election on Nov. 5.
This article was first published by our sister publication, The News.
