Party Politics Comes to Town

Moore County’s 2026 election has been a political shitshow. Friday, everyone will still wake up in the same county.

#Opinion • 10:57 p.m. Aug. 3, 2026

Moore County did not ask Nashville to come down here and straighten out its politics.

We had managed for a long time without the help.

Candidates ran for local office as people, not party labels. Voters knew who they were, where they came from, who their people were, and whether they would answer the phone after Election Day.

It was not a perfect system. Nothing involving politics ever is.

But it was ours.

Now, state and national politics have worked their way down the ballot, through the courthouse door, and into races that used to be settled neighbor to neighbor.

And Nashville has tied it in knots.

Here comes the help

Tennessee Republicans have pushed party politics deeper into local elections, including county races once settled without party primaries in Moore County. Republican lawmakers have tried to push party labels into municipal elections, too.

Maybe it makes sense from a committee room in Nashville. It does not fit Moore County.

“Nonpartisan” has never meant nobody here has political opinions. Lord knows we do.

It meant a candidate for sheriff, county clerk, mayor, Metro Council, or school board had to stand on his or her own name. Nobody got to hide behind an elephant or a donkey and call the job done.

Nobody is setting foreign policy from the County Building basement. The people elected Thursday will deal with budgets, roads, records, deputies, schools, zoning, and the problems that land on local desks every morning.

Those jobs require judgment, common sense, and a willingness to look somebody in the eye.

A party label tells us very little about any of that.

One deadline, two answers

Moore County held its first county primary this spring. ... It did not take long for the first part to come loose.

Sheriff Tyler Hatfield planned to seek re-election as an independent. According to his lawsuit, he relied on the General Election timeline and submitted his paperwork to the Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission on Feb. 13.

POST later said he had missed the deadline.

Hatfield had to sue for the right to appear on the ballot.

Chancellor J.B. Cox eventually ordered POST to certify him and directed election officials to place his name on the Aug. 6 ballot. Court filings said Hatfield had relied on official guidance and public notices that pointed him toward a different deadline.

A sitting sheriff had to go to court after state officials and the election timeline pointed him toward two different deadlines.

That ought to have been enough foolishness for one election.

It was not.

Another problem rolls downhill

On Monday, three days before Election Day, the Tennessee Republican Party raised another objection. This time, the complaint was about the order of the candidates’ names on the sheriff ballot.

Hatfield, the independent, appears first. William Raline, the Republican nominee, appears second.

The Tennessee GOP says state law requires the majority-party nominee to be listed ahead of an independent. Its attorney demanded that election records be preserved and warned that legal action could follow. The letter also questioned whether the candidates had been intentionally misordered but offered no evidence that they had been.

Raline did not know about the letter until he received a copy. The complaint was not launched from Moore County. It did not begin with Raline, his campaign, or some local groundswell demanding action.

It came down from Nashville. But it landed here. With a thud.

The law ought to be followed. That is not up for debate.

Moore County Administrator of Elections Jim Sanders is standing in the middle of it, and he knows it. He has not reached for an excuse. He has owned the deadline guidance his office gave candidates, the decision to open sealed ballot boxes before certification, and the order of names on the sheriff ballot.

The trouble did not begin with Jim Sanders, but he knows where the local responsibility rests.

There is no polite way to dress up 2026. It has been a shitshow.

Just look at what this new and improved system has delivered to Moore County: A primary that drew only 120 voters. A deadline dispute. A lawsuit. A court order. And now, days before the election, another threatened legal fight – this one over which name got the top line.

That is a fair amount of government for a county that never asked for the help.

Then we turned on each other

While the lawyers and party officials sort through the fine print, the comment section runs wild.

Ready. Shoot. Aim.

A headline goes up, and folks start choosing sides before they finish the first paragraph. A mistake becomes a conspiracy, a question becomes an accusation, and anybody asking for facts must be carrying water for somebody.

Then, right on schedule, somebody hauls out the oldest, sorriest line in Moore County politics: “You ain’t from around here.” That horse has been dead a long time. We can quit beating it.

Moore County has old families. It has long memories. Folks here can tell you whose Mamaw and Papaw owned a piece of ground before the people who owned it before you.

That is part of the place. It does not give anybody a deed to the county. Being born here does not make a vote count twice. Moving here does not make a vote count half.

This county belongs to the people who call it home. All of them.

We can support Hatfield without treating Raline’s voters like fools. We can support Raline without accusing Hatfield’s voters of plotting against the republic.

We can vote differently in every race without deciding the person across the holler has become our enemy.

Moore County is too small for the kind of politics being piped into it from cable television, social media, and state party headquarters.

The person you call a crook online tonight may be standing behind you at Woodard’s tomorrow. The neighbor whose character you question may be sitting two pews over Sunday morning. The fellow you accuse of ruining the county may be the one who pulls over when your truck is in the ditch.

Around here, politics does not happen among strangers.

We ought to handle it better.

Friday still comes

At 7 p.m. Thursday, the polls will close.

Some folks will be happy. Some will be sick about it. A few will say they knew how it would turn out all along, including some who predicted the exact opposite last week.

Friday morning, we will all wake up in the same county.

Deputies will answer calls. Teachers will get ready for school. Businesses will unlock their doors. Trucks will roll through town. The Square will still be there.

So will the people we have spent the past few months arguing with.

Maybe a tailgate party on the Square is not such a bad idea.

Pull the trucks around. Drop the tailgates, set out the folding chairs, and let familiar voices finally drown out the campaign noise.

Bring a cooler. Leave the campaign speeches at home.

Winners, losers, old families, newcomers, Republicans, Democrats, independents, and everybody tired of hearing about ballots, deadlines, lawsuits, and party rules can celebrate the one thing we will finally have in common:

The General Election is over.

Then we can get back to the business of being neighbors.