Who will be Charlotte’s next mayor after Lyles resigns? Here are possibilities.
The mayoral playing field is wide open after Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles announced she will resign next month and won’t seek reelection. Lyles didn’t give a specific reason why, but her decision will leave the city’s top position vacant for the first time in over a decade.
There’s no shortage of potential candidates who might take her place. While nobody has announced their intent to run for mayor, a few have signaled interest or been floated as top contenders.
The City Council will appoint someone to fill the position for the remainder of the term, which ends in December 2027. A likely scenario is that the council will look outside its ranks and choose somebody who isn’t currently in office.
Five council members are thought to be contenders for the next election.
Serving as an appointed mayor for a year and a half would give one of those council members an edge when that election comes. If all five do intend to run, they might be reluctant to vote for each other to fill the interim position.
That means each would face an uphill battle of securing the support of at least five of their remaining six colleagues to reach a majority for the interim job. Picking an interim mayor who doesn’t plan to run in 2027 would save the politicking for election season.
Here are some possibilities for who might run to be Charlotte’s next full-term mayor.
Mayor pro tem
James Mitchell has a couple of things going for him.
A split City Council elected him mayor pro tem at the start of the current term. The role is mostly ceremonial, but it is the second highest-ranking elected position in the city responsible for facilitating meetings in the mayor’s absence. He’ll likely assume some of the mayor’s duties until an appointment is made.
Mitchell also has the most years of council experience — 13 non-consecutive terms. He was first elected to a district seat in 1999 before winning at large in 2015 and has only briefly left office during that almost 27-year stretch.
In 2013, he took one term off after losing a mayoral bid against Patrick Cannon, who was mayor pro tem at the time. Mitchell resigned partway through his term in 2021 over conflict of interest concerns relating to his work with construction company RJ Leeper, which did business with the city.
Charlotte City Council members
A few other council members are also in the mix.
Dimple Ajmera and Victoria Watlington have already represented constituents citywide. They were the highest vote-getters in the previous two at-large elections, with Ajmera having a narrow lead in 2025, and Watlington slightly leading in 2023.
Their popularity with voters across the city could make them prime candidates.
Watlington represented west Charlotte in District 3 for two terms beginning in 2019 before moving to an at-large seat.
Ajmera started on council in 2017 as an appointee representing District 5 in east Charlotte. She quickly jumped to an at-large position following the election that same year. Ajmera has built up a massive campaign war chest with more than $180,000 on hand at the end of 2025, more than any other council member.
Malcolm Graham and Dante Anderson are other potential options at the district level.
Graham represents District 2, which includes parts of west and northwest Charlotte.
He boasts a larger résumé compared to others on this list. He first served on the City Council from 1999 until 2005. Graham resigned his seat after voters elected him to serve in the North Carolina Senate, where he would stay for the next decade before making an unsuccessful run for Congress. He returned to the council in 2019.
Anderson has represented District 1, which covers Plaza Midwood, NoDa and parts of uptown since 2022. She often moved in lockstep with the mayor.
She teased an announcement this year that many suspected would confirm her mayoral candidacy. Instead, she posted a video that broadly said she was ready “to lead us forward.”
Anderson became mayor pro tem last term and regularly facilitated zoning meetings in the mayor’s absence. Lyles previously told the Observer she was intentionally skipping meetings so Anderson could gain experience facilitating them.
The City Council chose not to reappoint Anderson as mayor pro tem after one term. And in a news release announcing her resignation on Thursday, Lyles said she would not make an immediate endorsement for her successor.
This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 8:54 AM.
