Clothes, food, travel: How GOP’s Charlotte mayor nominee spent 2025 campaign funds
The Republican candidate for Charlotte mayor spent thousands of her campaign dollars on clothes, football tickets and a post-election flight, according to her latest campaign finance report filed in January.
Some of Terrie Donovan’s expenses happened weeks after Election Day, including a more than $100 trip on the ride-share app Lyft on New Year’s Eve.
Donovan was a political newcomer when she challenged longtime Democratic incumbent Vi Lyles in 2025. Donors flooded Donovan’s campaign with nearly $40,000 in the weeks leading up to election night as the mayor faced national scrutiny for her response to Iryna Zarutska’s fatal stabbing on the light rail line.
Donovan lost by 45 percentage points. She received around 33,500 votes compared to Lyles’ roughly 92,500.
But finance records show Donovan, a real estate agent, continued to spend donors’ money on food and travel expenses after her defeat. Elections officials say the legitimacy of those expenses hinges on whether they supported her campaign efforts.
In a written statement to The Charlotte Observer, the former candidate said she made the “transactions in question” before Election Day, but they did not post to her bank until later. She declined an interview request and did not provide context for individual expenses.
“My campaign finance report is accurate and fully compliant, as confirmed by my treasurer,” her statement read. “I trust your reporting will reflect accurate facts that encompass the entire truth.”
Terrie Donovan spent almost $3,900 on clothes, report shows
Most of Donovan’s donations came from local sources. Her largest donor was herself: She supplemented her campaign with more than $7,200-worth of in-kind contributions, which are non-monetary goods or services, such as printing and t-shirts, rather than cash.
Donovan spent thousands of dollars on “clothes for campaign events,” according to her filings on the North Carolina State Board of Elections website.
Her first expense for clothes totalled more than $500 on Oct. 6, which was just under a month out from Election Day. She spent an additional $200 two weeks later, according to campaign finance reports.
Donovan’s largest clothes expense of nearly $2,400 came less than a week before the Nov. 4 election. She spent an additional $725 on clothes in the days immediately following her loss, according to her finance report.
In total, she accrued nearly $3,900 in expenses from brands including J. McLaughlin, Nordstrom, Loft, K LA Boutique and SSYS.
Again, she said the transactions happened before Election Day but delayed in posting to her bank.
What else did Donovan spend money on?
Donovan spent more than $3,500 on food during her campaign, most of which went toward two fundraising events in October.
Her finance report shows she spent hundreds on food after her defeat at restaurants including Mother’s Comfort Food, Char Bar No. 7 and Kid Cashew — as recently as Nov. 20.
Records show Donovan also made the following purchases:
- Carolina Panthers tickets on Oct. 23 for $245.
- A Lyft ride on New Year’s Eve for $121.
- A flight on Dec. 22 for $300.
In a written statement, Donovan said all three expenses were campaign related. The flight was for a post-election meeting in Washington, D.C., she said, without elaborating.
Donovan also spent more than $300 on Nov. 6 to give her volunteers gifts from President Donald Trump’s online store, and she attended a Nov. 12 donor meeting at Trump Winery in Virginia for $250.
How did Vi Lyles spend her campaign money?
Donovan spent $45,377.19 during the election cycle and had $1,672.94 remaining at the end of 2025. The mayor spent $141,834.77 and had $67,711.41 remaining, much of it rolled over from prior campaigns.
During the most recent reporting period, which ran from Oct. 21 to Dec. 31, Lyles spent more than four times as much as Donovan. It’s unclear where that money went because a full breakdown of her expenditures is not yet available on the State Board of Elections website.
A review of finance reports dating back to the start of her previous term in 2023 shows Lyles has not spent campaign dollars on clothing and spent less than $100 on food.
In 2024 Lyles spent $2,738.35 on flights, including one expense worth more than $1,750. She also spent $311.64 on Blumenthal Performing Arts Center tickets for a campaign volunteer event, according to her filings.
In 2023, she also spent $643 on Panthers tickets for a campaign party after winning the election.
Are Donovan’s campaign expenses legal?
Candidates must complete training within the first 90 days of their campaign instructing them on how they can and cannot spend money. They sometimes “push the envelope” of what’s allowed, said Kristin Mavromatis, a spokeswoman with the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections.
Her office audits every finance report within a month of receiving it, Mavromatis said. The county Board of Elections can send letters to candidates asking them to make corrections where necessary or pay unpermitted expenses out of pocket, but it does not have any enforcement authority.
Expenditures are generally allowed if a candidate would not have otherwise spent the money if they weren’t running for office, according to the state’s campaign finance manual.
That litmus test can get tricky when evaluating some expenses, such as hotel stays or dinners.
“There’s a lot of gray area,” Mavromatis said. “Some things are not allowed. Other things, it’s hard for us to say whether they’re allowed or not because under certain circumstances they would absolutely be allowed.”
Further muddying the water, candidates can start campaigning for a future election at any time. So a dinner expense weeks after losing an election could be justified as an expense for the next election.
Donovan told the Observer she is “more than likely running again.”
