If Democrats will let it
Whether Republican or Democrat, it is not often that state power players fail to get their way in North Carolina politics. On Saturday, however, high-level Democrats’ pick for state party chair lost reelection in an upset to a young, rural activist. Center-left Carolina Forward, a nonprofit progressive research group, dubbed the election “a massive rebuke of the party establishment.”
Anderson Clayton, 25, is chair in Person County (pop. 39,000) bordering Virginia north of Durham. N.C. Democrats’ State Executive Committee (SEC) chose Clayton over incumbent, Bobbie Richardson, 73, a former state House member and the party’s first Black chair elected in 2021. Richardson garnered endorsements from all seven Democratic members of the Congressional delegation, Attorney General Josh Stein, and Gov. Roy Cooper. Cooper delivered a prerecorded pitch for Richardson on the statewide Zoom call.
Richardson brought endorsements. But Clayton brought game, too. The president of the state party chairs’ association was a field organizer in Iowa both for Kamala Harris (2019) and for Elizabeth Warren (2020) before becoming regional field director for Amy McGrath’s 2020 campaign for U.S. Senate in Eastern Kentucky. She works as a broadband analyst focused on bringing service to rural communities. Clayton has been profiled in The Daily Yonder and quoted as a Trump-country progressive organizer in (of all places) The Washington Times.
North Carolina politicians use “from Murphy to Manteo” to reference the largely rural state’s expanse, a nine-hour drive west to east. But few actually traverse it. In her campaign for chair, Clayton barnstormed the state from end to end. Small-county Democrats who’d not seen an official from the state party in years welcomed and embraced her.
The elections Saturday were a clash of insurgents vs. establishment, rural vs. urban, and a generational shift. Three other state party offices went to fresh faces on Saturday. A majority of SEC members felt change was overdue after N.C. Democrats’ losses in 2022, including the U.S. Senate race and General Assembly seats. Democrats’ candidate recruiting efforts that were robust in 2018 and 2020 fell apart in 2022 (with multiple factors outside Richardson’s control). They left 14 of 50 state Senate seats and 30 of 120 state House seats uncontested, likely harming turnout for the U.S. Senate and down-ticket races. Democrats lost control of the state Supreme Court to Republicans. The impact for election law will be severe and enduring.
On Saturday, those frustrations provoked a house cleaning.
“Our party wanted to have young leadership and look toward young leaders,” state Sen. Mike Woodard of Durham told the Raleigh News and Observer. “We wanted to find people who appealed to young Democrats. While they’re relatively young, they’ve all been engaged in party activity for quite some time.”
“We’re ready for someone exciting because that’s what it will take to win statewide elections and do better in places where we’ve lost ground,” Durham Democrat Carl Newman told the newspaper.
Clayton resembles that remark. Fast-talking, animated, and quick on her feet (video), Clayton does not present as someone raised in a small southern town. When she attended a taping of “The Price Is Right” last summer, it was inevitable that Anderson Clayton would “come on down.”
The Associated Press reported:
In a statement, Clayton thanked Democrats from across the state “for trusting me to lead our party as we prepare for the 2023 and 2024 elections.”
“I ran for Chair because I believe that we can build a brighter future for NCDP from the ground up, and I can’t wait to get to work,” Clayton said.
Clayton campaigned on the need for change in the party. That’s after Democrats lost seats in the General Assembly. They also lost control of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Clayton also contended that the state party wasn’t doing enough to turn out its base and help candidates in rural areas.
Howard Dean initiated his 50-state plan because you can’t win if you don’t show up to play. Clayton is tired of Democrats feeling left behind in rural areas the party forfeits to the GOP.
For a party that imagines itself innovative, Democrats make too little room for young talent. They won’t stay if there’s nowhere up the ladder for them to go. State capitol insiders prefer the feels they get from former state politicians more at ease with the system of access-donors and old-boy consultants.
Plus, Democrats chronically pay too little attention to transition planning. Top national leadership remains a gerontocracy that does not seem to know its time is up. Baby boomers have had their turn at the tiller. They’ve made their mistakes and plenty of them. It’s time to step aside so younger generations can make theirs. It’s how a political party remains vital instead of sclerotic.
North Carolina’s grassroots are tired of losing and ready to follow Clayton. But will the top dogs?
Nationally even, Democrats are like the old joke about psychologists and light bulbs. First, the lightbulb has to want to change.