On May 8 floodwaters rushed into Sumner County, damaging property, and forcing emergency crews to execute dozens of water rescues.The storm also washed up new criticism for a far right-wing political organization that’s gained power in the county in recent years, and is challenging to take its politics to a bigger role in state government this year. That group is the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans.

Tennessee is not expected to have many truly competitive races in the August 1 state primary, but one that will be is already seeing misleading campaigning and a formal complaint of “skirting” campaign finance limits.That race involves Senate Education Chair Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, and his Senate District 4 Republican challenger Bobby Harshbarger, East Tennessee pharmacist and son of Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, R-Tennessee.Harshbarger has attempted to run to the right of Lundberg and is misleadingly criticizing the Senator for the failure of legislation to ban pride flags from Tennessee classrooms.

Metro Council member Freddie O’Connell and former Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Assistant Commissioner Alice Rolli beat out a crowded field of candidates to advance to the runoff in the Nashville mayor’s race Thursday evening.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee promised to continue his educational priorities after comfortably winning a second term.Governor Lee won nearly 65 percent of the vote to Democrat Jason Martin’s nearly 33 percent Tuesday night.  It’s an improvement over Lee’s victory four years ago where he won with 59 percent of the vote.

29.5 percent of respondents in a new poll of East Tennessee residents cited education and children as the topic they want elected leaders to focus on. That’s 6 points higher than the 23.2 percent who listed price increases and inflation in the poll.If the rest of the state is as focused on education as those polled, voters will have plenty to consider win the Governor’s race between Governor Bill Lee and Democrat Jason Martin.

In a televised debate on a wide range of topics, Democratic Tennessee House District 18 Candidate Gregory Kaplan proposed a drastic change that would put the future of every Tennessee public charter school, and their more than 30 thousand students, in question.Following a question about whether Tennessee needs more public charter

Gov. Bill Lee and his Democratic challenger, Dr. Jason Martin, agree that Tennessee students need timely and relevant vocational training opportunities, but the two candidates for governor don’t concur on much else when it comes to K-12 education.In fact, the two men hold widely divergent positions on charter schools, book bans, the state’s new third-grade retention law, and most of the biggest education issues facing Tennessee for the next few years, according to their responses to Chalkbeat’s 2022 candidates survey.

Incumbent Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was uncontested in the primary and will be facing Democrat Jason Martin in the Nov. 8 general election.Lee won by a wide margin over Democrat Karl Dean in 2018 and will battle for a second term with Martin, who beat Memphis’ JB Smiley by roughly 1,500 votes for the nomination.