Mecklenburg Democrats elect new leader after post-2024 election division
Mecklenburg County Democrats are moving on from their embattled leader with a new chair.
The Mecklenburg County Democratic Party elected former state representative and statewide candidate Wesley Harris as chairman at their yearly convention Saturday at Little Rock AME Zion Church. He'll lead the county party through the 2026 midterms as it looks to defend its dominance in local races, improve Democratic margins in the General Assembly and counter the Trump administration's sweeping policy shifts.
Saturday's convention followed a tumultuous stretch for the county party in the months after the 2024 election.
Now-former Chairman Drew Kromer faced criticism and calls for resignation over a staffer's departure and allegations the party neglected African American voters. He took office two years earlier pledging to increase fundraising and bring in more professional staff, but many Democrats were disappointed once again with turnout levels in deep blue Mecklenburg.
On Saturday, Harris defeated Kromer and longtime Mecklenburg County Commissioner Vilma Leake with 76% of the vote, pledging to unite the party.
'It's incumbent upon us to come together over the next two years,' he said.
Despite record-setting fundraising, increased staffing and publicity about efforts to get voters to the polls in 2024, voter turnout in heavily Democratic Mecklenburg once again trailed the rest of North Carolina as Democrats failed to flip the battleground state for presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Days later the county party's then-executive director, Monifa Drayton, resigned with a letter that compared her experience to that of 'professional Black women during the Jim Crow era.'
Multiple Black precincts chairs, including the first vice president of the county party's African American Caucus, told the Observer after Drayton's resignation that party leadership, including Kromer, failed to heed warnings about lackluster grassroots organizing in communities with large numbers of Black voters.
The caucus later released a statement calling on Kromer to resign.
Kromer did not resign and pushed back on the caucus' claims. He said the party was focused on advancing new strategies for organizing and outreach, and made investments in the African American community during the 2024 election cycle.
'What we've seen from the national results is that the party has a lot of work to do to connect with voters and to ensure that our candidates can win up and down the ballot,' he said previously.
Harris announced his campaign to challenge Kromer in February with an email to supporters saying his statewide race gave him 'a front-row seat to the dysfunction that has led our core voters to lose trust in our ability to lead.'
'There was a lot of disappointment on November 5th, but the thing that stung the most to me, the one that was the most personal, was seeing Mecklenburg County drop the ball yet again,' he wrote.
Leake, a fixture in local politics for decades, announced her own candidacy at Saturday's convention.
Harris ultimately received 76% of the vote. Precincts get different numbers of votes based on how many votes were cast for the Democratic nominee for governor in each precinct in the last election, according to state party rules.
Kromer told attendees following his defeat he remains committed to the party.
'Thank you for believing in this party and working together. Thank you for sharing your ideas. Thank you for everything,' he said. 'At the end of the day, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to continue to stay engaged.'
In his acceptance speech, Harris called for more civil debate within the party as it shapes its strategy for local elections later this year and consequential mid-term elections in 2026.
'Misunderstandings are way more common than malicious intent,' he said. 'And we're all Democrats. We all want to win.'
Harris represented parts of southern Mecklenburg from 2019 to 2024 in the North Carolina House. He ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2024, losing to Republican Brad Briner by a margin of 47.5% to 52.5%.
He grew up in Taylorsville and Statesville and graduated from Clemson University before a career as an economist and tax consultant.
Harris told the Observer after announcing his campaign for party chair that his statewide candidacy allowed him to see what strategies are working, or not working, for other county parties. He said he'd put those lessons to use as a party chair, especially the need to connect with the community outside of election cycles.
'Don't show up a couple of weeks before the election knocking on doors,' he said. 'Show up months before, years before the big elections, and just be part of the community.'
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