Monifa Drayton can’t ‘wait for space’ in bid to oust Mecklenburg’s Vilma Leake
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- Monifa Drayton challenges incumbent Vilma Leake for Mecklenburg County District 2 seat.
- Drayton cites healthcare leadership, advocacy and campaign wins as groundwork for office.
- Her platform emphasizes homeowner protection, food access, livability and engagement.
Monifa Drayton has waited a long time for a turn on the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners.
Her eyes are fixed firmly on the District 2 seat representing her west Charlotte community. Standing in her way is the unyielding presence of Vilma Leake, the longtime incumbent who’s occupied the seat since the start of the Obama administration.
“I’ve been waiting every year. And every year, and every year. So I decided this time that I can no longer delay and wait for space,” Drayton said. “A seat is not going to be pulled out for me, so I have to bring my own seat and try to get at the table.”
Her race is one to watch. The winner will face Republican candidate Angela White Edwards in the general election for the heavily Democratic district.
Leake is a formidable opponent, having served in some capacity each year since 1997. She is well regarded for her constituent services, though she has also stirred controversy through the years with dramatic statements and infamous clashes from the dais.
Leake is seeking her tenth term on the county commission after securing about three quarters of the vote in her last general election.
Drayton recognizes the challenges ahead, but she’s no rookie either, she said. Drayton is the former director of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party with decades of leadership experience in the health care industry who built her own political consulting company and holds a perfect record for winning campaigns.
She’s been preparing her whole life to make this leap, she said, and now’s the time for a changing of the guard.
“I don’t think passing the baton is a mean thing. I don’t think it has anything to do with age. I think when you stay in a seat too long, you start to be more reactive versus strategic,” Drayton said. “You start to lose the excitement and the innovation.”
Using her voice for good
Drayton was a regular in detention growing up, always for the same reason.
“She just had a mouth,” said Gerald Drayton, her father. “She just talks, and can talk, and has a lot to say.”
The Buffalo, New York, native was a radiant student with good grades who nevertheless captured the respect of her teachers, her father said. That included her detention teacher, Gustina Conway.
Conway often threatened to slap her for disrupting the room, Monifa Drayton said, but beneath her “rough” demeanor lied a soft spot for her potential.
The teacher pulled her aside one day to tell her she was a leader.
“People follow you. People listen to you. You have something about you,” Drayton recalled her teacher saying. “But you need to use your leadership powers for good because right now you use them for evil.”
Those words have guided her ever since, Drayton said.
As the assistant vice president over Atrium Health’s quality division, she heard from Black women who had difficulty getting promoted even with proper qualifications, she said. She spent five years advocating for an employee resource group for Black women before the company gave her the green light.
More than 2,400 employees participated in its first year, she said.
“That is where my legacy lives,” said Drayton, the 2020 recipient of Atrium’s excellence in health care equity and diversity award. “Legacy is the number of lives you touch.”
In the last year she became a strong voice in a push for Charlotte City Council to change direction on its community area plans for west Charlotte. A preliminary plan designated her community for more manufacturing development.
She successfully helped lobby the city to repurpose the recommended land use for about 180 acres from manufacturing to parks and reserves, she said.
And after leaving her 22-year career in health care, she founded a strategic consulting agency: Drayton & Conway Leadership Group, named in honor of the woman who set her on her path.
“Because she’ll always be in the middle of my leadership,” Drayton said. “Always.”
Working in politics
Drayton has dabbled in politics for years, mostly in supporting roles. She worked on the campaigns of city council members Renee Perkins-Johnson and Victoria Watlington as well as county commissioner Arthur Griffin.
She’s also the current chairperson of the Mecklenburg County Alcoholic Beverage Control board and the social action chair for the Charlotte alumni chapter of her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.
Her most high-profile role to date, though, was in 2024 as the short-lived executive director of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party. She left on sour terms after about five months, accusing the party in her resignation letter of racism and “intolerable” working conditions.
Her experience was “devastating,” she said.
“Sometimes you’re in a situation, and you don’t know why,” Drayton said. “But once you get through it, you’ll look back and say, ‘That experience was so necessary.’”
Drayton credits her time as the party’s top staffer for opening her eyes to why some communities are underserved, how she can be a more effective policymaker and why some precincts have low voter turnout. Politics felt transactional, focused more on winning than on changemaking, she said.
“Will your win impact the lives of people, or did you just win?” Drayton said. “If you’re holding a seat for a really long time, but the people are still hurting, did you really win?”
If elected, Drayton said she has four main focus areas.
First, she wants to protect homeowners and historic communities. She pointed to the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s plans to widen Interstate 77, which could impact historically Black neighborhoods and displace legacy homeowners, as the type of development she’d watch out for.
Livability is also a concern. That could involve anything from sidewalks to environmental safety, Drayton said.
Many District 2 residents live more than a half-mile from a grocery store and lack the transportation or money to get there, she said. That’s why food access is another issue she’ll look closely at, perhaps by creating workforce pathways.
Her final priority is uplifting neighborhood voices and engaging residents in every possible way: door knocking, town halls, Facebook posts and TikToks, she said.
Taking the baton
Friends and family say Drayton has been preparing for county commission her entire life, with each role building on the last as she finds new ways to help her community. Her communications and analytical skills have especially separated her from the rest of the pack, they said.
“She doesn’t have to be loud to be effective,” said Earl Leake, the former ABC board chair who recommended Drayton as his successor. “Even though she is intellectually curious, she is kind and respectful with it. She’s not rude. You won’t find her in a shouting match, but you will find her focused.”
As Drayton nears the end of her own term on the ABC board, she isn’t going to seek an extension, she said. She wants to give a new leader a chance.
That’s been a guiding principle throughout her career. Drayton spent the last years of her healthcare career working with a talented employee in whom she saw potential and prepared her to “take the baton.”
“I think it is very self-centered when you hold a seat too long, and when you prevent somebody else from moving forward,” Drayton said. “We have to take ourselves out of the center and really say, what is best for everyone else? Not what’s best for me.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Monifa Drayton can’t ‘wait for space’ in bid to oust Mecklenburg’s Vilma Leake."
