What Larken Egleston’s fundraising couldn’t win: Behind councilman’s at-large primary defeat
CLT Politics is a new weekly analysis of political news and events in Charlotte and across the region published Thursday by The Charlotte Observer.
Of all the results from the 2022 primary election in Mecklenburg County, Larken Egleston’s loss may stand as one of the most surprising.
The District 1 representative ran at-large and fell short Tuesday by 4,752 votes. He outraised every other at-large candidate by a significant margin. He reported pulling in more than $137,000 from January 2020 to May 2. The next-closest candidate, Dimple Ajmera, raised about $67,500. Ajmera finished second among at-large candidates.
There’s no easy answer to why Egleston lost, he told me Thursday morning.
Falling just short of the Black Political Caucus endorsement may have hurt him. But Ajmera didn’t get the endorsement either. The U.S. Senate primary between Rep. Ted Budd and Gov. Pat McCrory may have pulled some unaffiliated voters to the Republican ballot who would have voted for Egleston on the Democratic ballot.
Of the six candidates who ran at-large, Egleston also was the only one who hadn’t previously run citywide.
Let’s review some of the biggest wins, losses and takeaways, starting with Egleston.
City Council
▪ Egleston: “He and I didn’t always agree on everything, but he was someone I had a deep amount of respect for,” councilman Tariq Bokhari, a Republican, told me Thursday. “He was one of the Democrats’ absolute best council members in the way that he interacted with the community, in the way that he took on tough issues.”
Egleston will keep his job till September — when the new council is sworn in.
Bokhari pointed to the delay in the election as one reason why Egleston lost.
Egleston announced he’d run at-large in January 2021, the week after James “Smuggie” Mitchell left the City Council. He expected the election to be in 2021, and he expected two open seats with Mitchell leaving and Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt not running for reelection. Because of Census delays and a gerrymandering lawsuit in Raleigh, the election was delayed until Tuesday.
That gave time for more candidates, including Mitchell and former mayor Patrick Cannon, to get in the race. Cannon got about 25,600 votes; Mitchell got about 34,100 and will advance to the general election in July.
Egleston said he isn’t ruling out another run for office, but he also said it’s too early to decide what’s next.
“If the opportunity presents itself,” he said. “I love the work, I think I’m effective at the job, but I’m not going to run just to run.”
▪ Stephanie Hand: The Democratic winner in the District 6 primary, Hand is likely to get a lot of attention in the run-up to the July election.
She’s up now against Bokhari, who’s serving his second term. Democrats are likely to see an opportunity here. With no one up against Ed Driggs, the other Republican on council, Bokhari’s is the only district to flip.
Hand is a clergy member and consultant for United Methodist Church. The primary was her first time running for public office.
Democrats could be justified in seeing opportunity. Bokhari has the advantage of being an incumbent who can point to his record on council. Looking at demographics alone, though, District 6 is 31.2% Democrat, 30.7% Republican and 38.1% unaffiliated or other parties, according to the city’s website.
Of course, unaffiliated voters typically have partisan leanings. Which way they go could make the difference.
▪ Dante Anderson and Marjorie Molina: Two soon-to-be council members, Molina and Anderson each won a district seat, District 1 and District 5, respectively.
Both won handily and don’t have a competitor in the general election.
County commissioners
▪ Pat Cotham: Cotham got 48,702 votes, according to unofficial Election Day results. That’s more than any other candidate on the ballot in Mecklenburg County, except Democratic U.S. Senate Cheri Beasley.
▪ Arthur Griffin, Jr.: The longtime member and former chair of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board, Griffin advances to the general election as one of three Democratic at-large nominees for the Board of County Commissioners.
During a forum with the Black Political Caucus on March 31, Griffin said he wanted to see a score card for promises made on the campaign trail. Voters probably wouldn’t mind seeing a score below the names of elected officials on the dais. I don’t know who would actually keep score, but I like the image.
▪ Jennifer De La Jara: The at-large school board member De La Jara out-raised everybody else in the race, pulling in about $94,000, according to publicly-available finance records, but she fell more than 10,000 votes short of advancing to the general election.
It was never going to be an easy race for De La Jara. She faced two incumbents (Leigh Altman and Cotham, who is serving her fifth term) and Griffin, who has wide name recognition in the county.
In a text, De La Jara said she’s received calls from people praising her campaign and “encouraging me about future plans, but I’m only focused on my family and my school board work at this time.”
“I will continue to advocate at the state and county level for the resources our teachers and students deserve,” she wrote.
Another notable mention includes Tricia Cotham, who won the Democratic primary for N.C. House District 112. While primary season is over, her election season is not.
The July general elections for City Council will be here before we know it. And November won’t be far behind.
This story was originally published May 19, 2022 at 1:17 PM.
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