Major Shakeup in the Tennessee Governor’s Race?

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

From the Principal Toyota Studios, it's Morning in Memphis with Todd Starnes.

Todd Starnes (0:07)

And hello, everybody. Happy Monday to you. Great to be back in the Mid-South. Got back in about 2 o'clock this morning at Memphis International, pardon me, Fred Smith International Airport. We need to start calling the airport the Fred.

Dylan, I thought about that over the weekend, and I mean, it's Frederick Smith International Airport is a lot to get out. But if we just call it the Fred.

John Covington (0:30)

Yeah, I'm down for that.

Todd Starnes (0:32)

Right? It's a clever, fun name, and it still respects Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx.

David Hatley (0:38)

And you can confuse someone too.

SPEAKER_1 (0:39)

You'd be like, yeah, we're going to the Fred later.

Todd Starnes (0:42)

They're like, what is that?

SPEAKER_1 (0:44)

Then you can explain the whole story.

Todd Starnes (0:45)

Exactly. So it gives you a talking, but you can be conversational about it. Anyway, great trip out to California. We're going to talk more about that on the national show. I'm just going to say this about, I spoke to about a thousand conservatives in Orange County over the weekend.

They are fired up. And those are not, you know, I see a lot of doom and gloom Republicans. Those are not those people. So just a lot of excitement out in California. We're going to be talking about that in just a few moments. Right now though, we've got a lot happening here. We have a jam packed show this morning. And I want to go right away to our Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line and say hello to David Hatley, the independent running for governor. A couple of major events happening in Shelby County that he's going to tell us about, and also some brand new polling data that's expected to come out today.

And David, first of all, great to have you on the show. And it sounds like your campaign is really starting to gain steam.

David Hatley (1:48)

Hey, Todd, good morning. Yes, sir, it's good. We're hoping we're finalizing and getting all the waiting done on that. We'll get that out today. But it'll prove what I've told a lot of people that's been asking. I mean, we're certainly not a spoiler in this campaign. We continue to think we have a path to victory. And I think this polling data will back that up when we get it out to the public.

Todd Starnes (2:07)

So we're hearing, and just to give us some background on the poll, it wasn't like you guys didn't go out on the street and talk to 15 or 20 folks.

How many people were actually surveyed? And what was the process of surveying these folks?

David Hatley (2:22)

Yeah, I think it's going to end up around 13,000. It's a text poll that we did to a third party. So it's not us internally. It's a third party that we contracted it out to. But I think it's going to be, end up around 13,000 respondents. So it's a pretty good sampling size, much more than a typical poll that you would get out in the field.

Todd Starnes (2:39)

And just based on the number of attack ads, the new attack ads that have been coming out, it seems to me that that polling data could be very good for you guys.

David Hatley (2:51)

Yeah, I mean, you continue to see these attack ads. I mean, we're breaking records for the wrong reason. I think they're up to over $5 million now. They've spent an attack ads against me. And I think that's the most in American history for an independent to be attacked. So it's not a good record for either party to hold. But hey, welcome to politics. That's one thing I've learned since I've been on this campaign trail, expect the unexpected. And we've been prepared and focused on, as you said, we'll be out in Memphis today. We're super excited. We've got a big crowd out at Owen Brennan's in Memphis there today. And then we have another rally tomorrow night.

I don't have that location in front of me, but it's in Shelby County also. So we're we're looking forward to spreading our message and meeting more Memphians and and continuing our path.

Todd Starnes (3:35)

Tell us real quick about the the event today. Owen Brennan's give us the time and details. And how many folks you guys are expecting?

David Hatley (3:45)

Yeah, it's 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. But unfortunately, we are we are sold out with no extra room. I mean, we expect, you know, it's hard to say when you get these RSVPs, but we have over 600 RSVPs, which means we'll probably end up with around three or four hundred folks out there today. So it's a good size event. We're looking forward again to seeing people.