2022 Knox County, Tennessee mayoral election

2022 Knox County mayoral election

August 4, 2022
Turnout18.07% 8.24 pp
 
Candidate Glenn Jacobs Debbie Helsley
Party Republican Democratic
Popular vote 30,306 24,520
Percentage 55.28% 44.72%

Jacobs:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%
Helsley:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90%
     No data

Mayor before election

Glenn Jacobs
Republican

Elected Mayor

Glenn Jacobs
Republican

The 2022 Knox County mayoral election was held on August 4, 2022, to determine the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. The election was held concurrently with primary elections for various state offices, including the gubernatorial primaries. Incumbent Republican mayor Glenn Jacobs won re-election with 55.3% of the vote, defeating Democratic nominee Debbie Helsley.

As mayor, Jacobs branded himself as a libertarian and opposed COVID-19 restrictions like mask mandates.

Jacobs massively underperformed compared to his win in 2018, underperforming the most in the city of Knoxville. Voter turnout was extremely low, with only 18.1% of registered voters turning out. Jacob's massive underperformance and the lower voter turnout is mainly due to the fact that Republican Governor Bill Lee ran unopposed in his primary election and his Democratic challenger had a competitive primary. In 2018, local races saw higher voter turnout because all of the primary elections were contested that year.