Mecklenburg County Blues

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

UPDATE 4/28/25: Mecklenburg County Democrats chose Wesley Harris as their new chair, ousting Drew Kromer.

Most elections for county political party chair only matter to the most committed of party activists. Few make the news. But then, most county party chairs didn’t get glowing profiles in Politico and The New York Times.

Drew Kromer did.

When he was elected chair of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party in April 2023, Kromer was a 26-year-old politics nerd with ambition. In November that year, after all of the party’s endorsed candidates swept mayoral and town commissioner elections in Huntersville, a Charlotte suburb in the northern part of the county, many started to think he was the answer to Mecklenburg Democrats’ long-running turnout problem.

The county is home to more Democrats than any other in the state, but its voter turnout rates have typically lagged both the state average and other Democratic strongholds. For Kamala Harris to have any hope of winning the state, Democrats needed to boost their turnout in Mecklenburg.

Kromer was the image of optimism ahead of the 2024 election. “In a year and a half, we’ve built a juggernaut in Mecklenburg County,” he told Politico. 

A month later, Mecklenburg once again seemed to underperform: Turnout in November trailed the state average, and Harris won fewer votes in the county than Joe Biden did four years earlier. Three months into Donald Trump’s second term, Kromer isn’t projecting power. He’s pleading for patience. 

“As much as I had hoped we would be able to see a large movement in that direction, I think I’ve realized that it takes a while to turn a battleship,” he told The Assembly.

To get more time, Kromer will have to convince Mecklenburg Democrats to give him another term as chair during the party’s convention this weekend. He faces stiff opposition. He’s up against Wesley Harris, last year’s Democratic candidate for state treasurer. And Kromer has been dogged by criticism from Black Democrats who believe the November outcome had more to do with underinvestment in their communities than a crunched timeline.

The day after the election, the county party’s executive director, Monifa Drayton, resigned, sending a letter to Kromer, who is white, accusing the organization of treating her in a way “truly reminiscent to what was required of professional Black women during the Jim Crow era.” She also said she was “forewarned of the alleged racism, discrimination, incompetence, and manipulation” before taking the job. Kromer said he doesn’t discuss personnel matters, but he was “disappointed that it didn’t end up working out.”

Others have backed Drayton’s criticisms since. Mecklenburg County Commissioner Arthur Griffin, who is Black, wrote to party leaders in Drayton’s defense, according to WFAE. “I am asking for you and the other co-conspirators to immediately step aside from leadership of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party,” he wrote to Kromer. The county party’s African American Caucus followed suit, publicly calling on Kromer to resign. Among other issues, they said the party refused “to engage with ethnic minority communities” or the caucus itself. 

Three precinct chairs, all members of the African American Caucus, also told The Charlotte Observer that the county party neglected majority-Black areas. One of them, S.Y. Mason-Watson, criticized the party spending $100,000 on its election night celebration, telling WCNC, “The disrespect is palpable.” 

Others were frustrated that the county party recruited Nicole Sidman, who is white, to run against Democrat-turned-Republican state Rep. Tricia Cotham. They preferred Cotham’s former Democratic primary opponent Yolonda Holmes, who is Black. Cotham narrowly won.

This weekend’s election is not just about a county leader. Kromer’s critics aren’t content with replacing him. They want to overhaul how the party is run.

“The issue is not the ability to raise money,” said Paul McAllister, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Interfaith Caucus. “The Democratic Party has the right profile in terms of its diversity and big-tent ideology. But it needs to have along with that the maturity to embrace what that actually means in practice in voter engagement, in outreach, in investment, in commitment. And that has not happened.”

“I know it’s not fun to say that we suck less, but sometimes that’s a win too.”

Drew Kromer, Mecklenburg County Democratic Party Chair

On Election Day, some Black Mecklenburg voters who were repeatedly canvassed said they barely made it to polls. One of them, Teresa Walker, couldn’t remember the last time she voted. “I want to say it was Obama,” she said. 

The Democrats had called her earlier that day, and a volunteer came by her house, though her daughter thought it was a salesperson and didn’t answer. A reminder from her boyfriend had more impact, but it was ultimately Walker’s boss who gave her the push she needed by sending her home early from work so she could make it before polls closed.

The only way to finally turn out the vote in Mecklenburg, McAllister and others argue, is by reforming the party and building stronger bonds with existing minority organizations, especially in Black neighborhoods, to provide the support voters like Walker need. 

What the Numbers Say

The story of Mecklenburg turnout last November is, like many things in Charlotte, largely the story of the Crescent.

Charlotte’s urban center and neighborhoods south of it tend to be white and rich, as do the areas around Huntersville, Davidson, and Cornelius in the north of the county, and Ballantyne, Matthews, and Mint Hill in the south. Between them, arcing around the downtown wedge, is the Crescent, a collection of neighborhoods with a notably higher Black population and a notably depressed median income.

The early signs of Kromer’s tenure were positive for Democrats. By the end of the third quarter last year, the party had raised $2.7 million. At that point in the 2020 election cycle, it had only brought in $148,000. 

War chest in hand, Kromer didn’t just hire the party’s first paid staff member in a decade. He hired 25. When Politico took notice in October, the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party had recruited 5,200 volunteers, knocked on more than a quarter-million doors, and made more than 1.2 million phone calls.

“Little movements have big consequences,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College. “If they had increased Mecklenburg, and particularly the Black Charlotte precincts, up two or three percentage points in turnout, that could have gone a long way” to flipping the state.

While Kamala Harris won Mecklenburg County handily, with 66 percent of the vote, Democrats’ goal was winning it by higher margins than Biden had. Instead, her margin of victory shrank, particularly within the Crescent. The places where she made gains were mostly limited to the wealthier, whiter suburbs.

Despite a popular narrative about Black men backing Trump, Democrats’ main problem was voters who stayed home. Kamala Harris received fewer votes than Biden did in 132 of Mecklenburg’s 195 precincts. In 121 of them, the combined Democratic and Republican vote total was lower than it had been in 2020, meaning she lost more votes than Trump gained.

Kromer admits the results are hard to stomach, but he argues that context is important when judging his party’s impact.

According to a New York Times analysis, urban counties across the country saw a 6.9 percentage point swing toward Trump on average. In Mecklenburg, it was 2.3 points.

“What I like to say when I’m talking to Democrats here locally is, I know it’s not fun to say that we suck less, but sometimes that’s a win too,” Kromer said.

Doors and Leaders

His critics are unmoved.

“I will be the first person to tell you that turnout was hideous, it was horrible, it was bad,” Braxton Becoats, chair of the African American Caucus, said during a February panel event organized by Charlotte alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority. “If we want to increase that turnout, we have to do things differently.”

Becoats, who ran against Kromer for party chair in 2023, said the party had ignored majority-Black precincts. “The party has got to show up more frequently and more consistently,” he said, not just a month or two before the election.

That is the core of Kromer’s declared strategy. By hiring staff and increasing funding, Kromer hopes to create a “year-round” party more embedded in Mecklenburg’s various communities. Today, it has four full-time staff and one part-time, with two open jobs and plans for three others. 

Kromer organized the party around new “area groups” that combined multiple precincts, assigning each group to a volunteer coordinator tasked with organizing monthly events to build community. It was meant to give more responsibility to talented and dedicated organizers.

But it upset some longtime volunteers who weren’t asked to lead the new groups, including members of the African American Caucus. 

“At the end of the day, intent is one thing, but it’s actually being able to implement it and going out and building those relationships,” said Wesley Harris, Kromer’s opponent for party chair. “That’s what wasn’t done. You can tell by the complete unraveling of the relationship between the chair and some of our big groups. A lot of the precinct chairs were entirely furious with how things were going.”

Becoats and his fellow critics say Kromer tried to transport what worked in Huntersville to very different areas.

“The party has to listen to its community leaders,” Becoats said at the February event. “Of course, as the president of the African American Caucus, I have my ear to the ground. I’m able to hear what the grassroots needs are. What works on Beatties Ford Road, what works in other African American neighborhoods, is totally different than what works in Ballantyne.”

Becoats, who didn’t respond to interview requests, voiced particular frustration with the party’s attempts at community engagement. “We all know when we hear a good tune, a good beat, we’re going to naturally go in that direction, but that’s not always the type of event that our party wants to put on,” he said.

Kromer said the county party knocked on 400,000 doors and made more than 3 million phone calls, focusing on Black neighborhoods.

He also provided The Assembly with a post-election analysis he commissioned from Haystaq, a political data analytics firm. It concluded that 40 percent of voters contacted by the party were Black—above the percentage of Black people in the county (33) but below the percentage of registered Democratic voters who are Black (54)—and that Black voters were among “the most receptive to contact.”

“That is the role of a political party, of a county party: to focus on the areas that do not have active campaigns.”

Wesley Harris, candidate for Mecklenburg County Democratic Party chair

Some voters weren’t impressed with the outreach. “I got phone calls. Oh my God, I just wanted them to stop,” said Brandon Moore, a truck driver from the Crescent’s Precinct 41. “Eventually they stopped calling once I stopped answering because they’ve been calling back to back to back to back.”

Moore said the outreach “kind of” motivated him, but he wasn’t planning on voting when he got off work 45 minutes before polls closed on Election Day until his mother and grandmother called to urge him to. Kamala Harris received around 200 fewer votes in Moore’s precinct than Biden did.

Some of Mecklenburg’s Black political leaders also feel shut out by Kromer and his allies.

“My sense is the Democratic Party of Mecklenburg County does not understand the Crescent, does not understand the African-American community or minority communities,” McAllister said, emphasizing that he wants to see them connect with Black churches, civic groups, fraternities, and sororities already active in the area. “What type of relationship does the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party have with these historic well-respected organizations?”

Wesley Harris’ pitch for chair is that he will build those ties by bringing more people into the decision-making process.

“I’ve talked to Drew about this, and he was like, ‘I just wanted to move fast.’ But you have to get people to buy into that vision so that they understand that you’re coming from good-faith efforts,” he said.

Becoats described the relationship between his caucus and the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party as “testy.” Kromer acknowledged the difficulties, saying he’s made offers to discuss their issues, including with third-party facilitation, but they’ve been rejected.

“Sometimes folks say that they want investment to happen through local groups, and sometimes they’re subtly saying themselves,” Kromer said.

The African American Caucus did not respond to interview requests, but some of its members have leveled a similar complaint against Kromer. The Charlotte Observer reported that some precinct chairs, including African American Caucus member Tanya Lewis, alleged party leaders kept precincts weak to avoid competition for leadership positions.

“There’s an arrogance and a privilege, and it is to preserve the current power infrastructure,” Lewis said.

What’s a Party For?

County parties have limited power and influence, especially over campaigns.

Kamala Harris’s campaign has been taken to task for its messaging—”It did not resonate with Black young people,” Jocelyn Jones Nolley, chairperson of the influential, independent Black Political Caucus of Mecklenburg County, said at the February panel event—but the county party has no role in determining a president’s campaign strategy.

Nor do county parties drive get-out-the-vote strategy. Each candidate’s campaign makes its own decisions, working alongside the state party’s coordinated campaign. Kamala Harris has been criticized by Democratic activists across the country for prioritizing white suburbs over the Black urban core. In Philadelphia, campaign staff reportedly grew so frustrated they secretly organized their own get-out-the-vote efforts.

Mecklenburg’s political dynamics amplify the problem. Most of the county leans so Democratic that there are barely any competitive races at all, which means few campaigns organizing volunteers. Only five of Mecklenburg’s 19 General Assembly races were within 10 points, and all of them were in Mecklenburg’s suburbs or the wealthy wedge. The rest were uncontested or only had third-party competition.

“Those are what I call the urban suburbs,” said Bitzer, the Catawba College professor. “They’re in an urban county, but they’re outside of the central city. If you take all of them across the state, they’re the most competitive regions.”

Mecklenburg’s Black Democrats are well aware of the dynamic, and they have equally strong critiques for the state party. Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, faced similar criticisms as Kromer ahead of her re-election in February. (It’s a fitting connection: Kromer and Clayton ran against each other twice for positions as college Democrats, Kromer said. They each won once, he said.)

If relatively uncompetitive races in the Crescent—or areas with similar dynamics, like majority-Black counties in the east—aren’t attracting the same money and attention as the suburbs, Wesley Harris argues the only groups that can effectively organize those voters are county parties.

“That is the role of a political party, of a county party: to focus on the areas that do not have active campaigns,” he said.

It’s one thing Kromer and his critics agree on: The Mecklenburg County Democratic Party must turn into a year-round organization active across all of the county, complete with its own resources and volunteer base. 

“Long-term, there’s no reason that Mecklenburg can’t be the activism hub in this part of the state that helps us flip competitive legislative races around us,” Kromer said. “There’s no reason that we let some arbitrary county line stop us from doing the work that’s needed to break the majority—and not the super majority, but the majority.”

Correction: A previous version of this story said Drew Kromer and Anderson Clayton ran against each other once as college Democrats. It has been updated to show that Kromer said they faced off twice.