New Mecklenburg Democrats chair brings change to a party that sorely needs it | Opinion
The Mecklenburg County Democratic Party elected a new chair last month — its second leadership change in two years.
Former state representative Wesley Harris defeated incumbent chair Drew Kromer with 76% of the vote. Harris is now tasked with guiding a divided party through a massive political moment, as Democrats look to respond to Donald Trump’s presidency and position themselves for the 2026 midterms.
It’s a shake-up the party sorely needed as it faces deep divisions sparked by yet another disappointing election. And it’s not unlike the position Mecklenburg Democrats found themselves in two years ago, when Kromer took over the party vowing to increase voter turnout. He focused on fundraising and increasing the number of full-time staff members on the party’s payroll with the hope that more resources would help generate more votes.
It didn’t work. Despite Kromer’s efforts, Mecklenburg County’s voter turnout for the 2024 election was 69%, lower than the statewide average and worse than 2020, when the party’s fundraising and staffing levels were much lower.
“We had so much money last year. We had more money than I think any county party’s probably ever raised, and thought that was going to be able to solve everything,” Harris said. “But the core problem we have is a lack of relationships in the communities that we need to turn out.”
In the aftermath of the election, that became clear. Concerns were raised about the party’s neglect of Black voters and lackluster organizing in Black communities. The party’s executive director resigned, comparing her experience at the organization to that of “professional Black women during the Jim Crow era.” Kromer faced calls for his own resignation, including from Black leaders within the party.
Harris said it was a lack of trust that made him believe the party needed new leadership and not just a new strategy.
“The allegations right after the election, those are things that are killer. They kill trust. They kill cooperation,” Harris told me. “You cannot recover if you do not make changes in leadership. And I think our party needed a fresh start very badly.”
As a former member of the N.C. House of Representatives and candidate for statewide office, Harris has a different background than many county party chairs, and certainly a different one than his predecessor. That experience as a candidate in both local and statewide elections gives him a unique perspective that will be valuable in his new role, he told me. Part of that means understanding that a campaign has a different role than a party: individual campaigns should focus on persuadable voters, while the party apparatus should focus on mobilizing the base.
Harris believes that, as a party, Mecklenburg Democrats have been doing too much of the former. In 2024, Democrats focused heavily on legislative seats in suburban parts of the county, and devoted significant resources to turning out voters in those areas. They won two out of the three seats, but Harris said he doesn’t think the party’s focus there was entirely necessary. He pointed to the fact that competitive elections naturally generate well-funded and highly active campaigns, as well as higher turnout. But the opposite is true in the bluest parts of the county, where victory is all but guaranteed. Candidates don’t have to raise funds or campaign heavily in those areas, so the party has to work harder to get voters to show up.
“The goal of the party, and the sole purpose of the party, in my opinion, is to fill in those gaps where we do not have those active campaigns,” Harris told me.
Harris believes he can do what previous chairs have not: ensure Democratic voters in Mecklenburg County are showing up at full strength. Doing so will require rebuilding trust with Black voters, who tend to live in the least competitive parts of the country and feel like their votes are taken for granted. Harris, who has already assembled a diverse leadership staff, plans to increase efforts to build relationships with Black communities and invest more of the party’s resources into those areas.
“We need to show that we’re not just doing lip service. We’re not just doing transactional service,” Harris said. “If we want to transform what North Carolina can be statewide, then we have to get our base voters out, and that means going to every single corner of this county and showing them that it matters to vote.”
