MAGA loser Gabrielle Hanson claims her mayoral election loss was “rigged”

Small-town MAGA Republican mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson lost big in Franklin, Tennessee’s election two weeks ago — by a margin of 4 to 1 — but that isn’t stopping her from claiming fraud. Similar claims have been made by former President Donald Trump and other failed political candidates who have supported him.

Hanson’s scandal-ridden campaign collapsed under the weight of a seemingly endless series of damning revelations featuring white supremacists, a cannibalistic drag queen, and identity theft, among other disclosures, helping sink a slate of far-right Republican candidates with her.

Related:

Nazi-loving anti-LGBTQ+ mayoral candidate pulverized in Tuesday’s election

But she wasn’t going down without one more scandal.

Local voters turned out in record numbers to definitely reject Hanson and her MAGA cohort.

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Over the weekend, the former Franklin alderwoman recorded a podcast with losing candidate for Arizona secretary of state, Mark Finchem, a prominent conspiracy theorist and election denier.

Hanson claimed the massive turnout rejecting her only confirmed the election was rigged.

“We had three and a half times the normal turnout for an election,” Hanson said, without a trace of irony.

“So, to see it flip like that, after all the calls that myself and the other three aldermen running got, just seems very questionable,” she said.

“What you’re describing, madam, is not an election,” declared Finchem. “It’s a selection that was preset before anybody ever walked into that election booth.”

Hanson came to national attention in April when she tried to shut down Franklin’s upcoming Pride celebration, claiming children would be corrupted by a drag queen who once ate a “live, beating heart.” That accusation was false.

“This is something that could have happened in our park!” Hanson warned her fellow lawmakers at a council meeting.

An unhinged aide to Hanson testified through tears at another council meeting that LGBTQ+ people are giving away buttplugs to children and training them how to use them. She provided no proof to back up this claim.

In September, Hanson’s mayoral campaign started imploding with back-to-back bombshells reported by local newsman Phil Williams at WTVF in nearby Nashville.

In the 1990s, Hanson pleaded guilty to “promoting prostitution.”

In 2008, she encouraged her husband to march in Chicago’s Pride parade wearing only a speedo.

In September, it was revealed Hanson used photos of strangers culled from social media falsely portraying them as members of an “executive committee” in support of her candidacy.

In October, Hanson enlisted members of a local white supremacist organization to provide security at a candidate forum. The head of the organization and her “friend” declared he was no “cuckservative,” adding, “I’m an actual literal Nazi.”

Hanson has also said she has “full knowledge” from an inside source that the mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school in March involved a scandalous “love triangle.” The unsubstantiated claim led to an investigation by the Franklin Ethics Commission.

On the podcast, Hanson littered her losing election result with conspiracy theories.

She claimed there was something suspicious about a poll watcher at one precinct, Joshua Patrick, secretary of the Williamson County Young Democrats.

“He works for the new self-described socialist mayor in Nashville, Freddie O’Connell,” she told the podcasters. O’Connell has not described himself as a socialist.

She said Patrick has described himself as opposing fascism, “meaning he’s Antifa, and we knew he was Antifa from some — a group that we were working with to identify Antifa members in the community.” Hanson was referring to her white supremacist supporters.

Hanson also claimed that voting machines in the county were switching votes from her to her opponent, incumbent Republican Mayor Ken Moore, and that NewsChannel 5 was “paid a lot of money” to run stories smearing her, hinting a Republican rival, state Sen. Jack Johnson of Franklin, was responsible.

Replied podcast host Finchem: “If you weren’t actually speaking about this as a real event, I would think that I was reading fiction.” 

Trump, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, and other MAGA candidates have previously made similar claims that their election losses were due to “rigging.” However, such claims have largely been swatted down by Republican election officials and conservative judges due to lack of evidence.