Endorsements Split Wake County Dems

Prominent Wake Democrats and the Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus are urging the larger county party not to make endorsements in this year’s nonpartisan Raleigh City Council races.

All city council seats and the mayor’s seat are up for election in November, and in several races, multiple Democrats are in the running. Since 2011, the party has endorsed one of those candidates. But this year, some are calling for the party not to weigh in, and candidates’ positions on the Israel-Hamas conflict appear to be the main reason.

In a letter sent to Wake County Democratic Party Chair Kevyn Creech and executive director Wesley Knott on Friday, more than 20 local Democrats, including several former members of the Raleigh City Council, encouraged the party “not to endorse between Democrats in local elections in Raleigh this fall.”

“When [endorsements were] done in 2022, it created a lot of divisions within the Democratic Party that have taken two years to repair and aren’t quite there yet,” the letter states. “Democrats are divided over housing issues and the Israel/Palestine conflict and we think the voters should decide between Democratic candidates, not the Executive Council, who may be less aware of or focused on important Raleigh-specific governance issues. These issues are complicated and hard and hopefully won’t last forever.” 

The letter says endorsements between Democrats could impact both the city and the party “in a divisive way.”

“We want the Wake Dems to stay united, working together on the State and National elections, and not let the local issues divide us,” the letter continues. 

In response, Creech noted that the letter’s signatories are all Raleigh residents, and the races in which they endorse affect the whole county.

“The problem with this is that they are not thinking beyond Raleigh,” Creech says. “If we don’t do what we need to do, not only is it impossible to keep our school board sane, and that affects everybody, but also it doesn’t allow for people without huge connections and lots of dollars to have a shot at running.”

The local branch of the state Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus has also encouraged its members to ask the party not to endorse. 

In an email the INDY viewed, Linda Brinkley, the president of the caucus chapter, and Lynn Schwartz, its vice president, urged fellow members to write to the county party’s executive council as soon as possible “and ask them not to endorse specific Democratic candidates when two or more qualified Democrats are running in nonpartisan elections.”

“In 2022, when the [Wake Democrats] endorsed a specific candidate in what was supposed to be a non-partisan race, many Democratic voters were alienated,” a document attached to the email states. Brinkley and Schwartz asked recipients to copy and paste the document’s language with their name and send it to the Wake County Democratic Party executive committee members. 

Voters “felt that the role of the county party was to support all Democrats running and not choose sides,” it reads. “This caused a great deal of division and stopped many people from donating their money and time … We cannot afford to alienate ANY Democratic voters in 2024–too much is at stake therefore we must unite in order to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”

But the county Jewish caucus’ concerns extend beyond the principle of endorsing one Democrat over another. 

The email notes that the county party will decide whether to re-endorse District A incumbent Mary Black and District E incumbent Christina Jones, both of whom the party endorsed in 2022. Both candidates “urged the City Council to adopt a one-sided, anti-Israel resolution after October 7,” the email states. 

Eric Solomon is a member of the Wake chapter of the Jewish caucus and leads Raleigh’s Beth Meyer Synagogue, which is located in District A, home to Raleigh’s largest Jewish population. As a lifelong Democrat, Solomon says he wants to see his party do well up and down the ballot, including in the governor’s race where attorney general Josh Stein would be the first Jewish governor of North Carolina if elected this fall. 

But as a District A resident, Solomon says, he has concerns about Black’s past social media posts about the Gaza conflict that he characterizes as going “beyond simple criticism of Israel” and that have “leaned into antisemitic tropes.”

“[It’s] her focus on this issue, her unwillingness to speak with me and the Jewish community, certainly in public sessions but only somewhat begrudgingly in private sessions,” Solomon says. “The fact that she held community events on the holiday Hanukkah, for example, when most of the Jews in my community could not come out.”

Black was a staunch advocate for the council to adopt a ceasefire resolution last winter. In March, after the council failed to reach a consensus on a resolution and instead released a public statement calling for peace, Black unexpectedly introduced a new Gaza ceasefire resolution. Her resolution ultimately failed on a 4-4 vote.

Black denies intentionally planning an event during Hanukkah and says she has tried to engage with Solomon without success. She notes that she has never posted about foreign issues on city or campaign-related social media. 

“The ceasefire resolution that was motioned forward was drafted with Jewish community members and organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, who continue to support me, my voice, and my re-election for city council,” Black wrote in an email to the INDY. “This belief that I must labor, perform, and keep someone’s worldview comfortable at all times even when it harms me is steeped in white supremacy … It is my hope that the party sees through these baseless attempts to malign and attack yet another Black elected official who has spoken for a ceasefire like we saw with Jamaal Brown and Cori Bush.”

In a statement, council member Jones said she hopes voters, and the party, will consider the work she has done in her first term in its entirety.

“I’ve worked diligently on issues like affordable housing, community engagement, and worker’s rights,” Jones wrote in an email to the INDY. “Values that the Democratic Party holds in high regard. … While some may disagree with me on varying issues, I think we are more alike than we are different. The work I have done has had a tremendous impact on Raleigh residents and I hope that is given full consideration by Raleigh voters and the Wake County Democratic Party.”

Conner Taylor, the 2nd Vice Chair of North Carolina Democratic Party Jewish Caucus, says its members are concerned that the city council has become a source of division in Raleigh.  

“There has been a lot of discussion of controversial foreign policy issues at the city council and that’s been heartbreaking to watch because it’s so divisive and the city council has no ability to affect positive change in those areas,” Taylor says. “Given that the city council is already a source of division, we’re concerned about the idea that the Wake County party would be endorsing one Democrat against another Democrat because that would take an already divisive atmosphere and add more division to it. That’s the wrong move in an election year.”

The Wake County Democratic Party started regularly endorsing candidates in nonpartisan local races more than a decade ago, according to Creech, after Republican donors poured money into Board of Education races in 2009 that led to a Tea Party takeover of the board. 

“The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) became the butt of national jokes due to the overtly partisan rhetoric and policies enacted by the then School Board,” states a Wake Dems nonpartisan endorsement explainer. “WCPSS also nearly lost accreditation.”  

But the party’s endorsements in nonpartisan races have often been controversial. 

In 2022, the party endorsed mayoral challenger Terrance Ruth over incumbent Mary-Ann Baldwin. Baldwin ultimately won, but the endorsement likely helped Ruth garner 41 percent of the vote. It was also the first year city council elections were held during a midterm election rather than in an odd-numbered year, drawing three times as many voters than in previous years. Candidates that the Wake Democrats endorsed did well, including four millennial newcomers who were elected to the council. 

The party didn’t endorse in the 2019 mayoral race (though it did endorse in District E), but its 2017 endorsement of Democrat Charles Francis over unaffiliated incumbent mayor Nancy McFarlane rubbed some of the popular mayor’s supporters the wrong way. 

Creech says the party has “an extremely normative, rigorous process” in making its endorsement decisions. All candidates who want to be considered are invited to a group interview and asked to complete a questionnaire that the party then publishes. The party’s 11-member executive council is made up of leaders elected by the convention or county executive committee, as well as a treasurer appointed by the party chair, and deliberates and ultimately decides on the endorsements. Once they reach their decisions, endorsed candidates are asked to sign a document outlining expectations of them as both a candidate and an elected official.

Creech says she does not view the party’s endorsement of one Democrat over another as divisive or alienating to voters, and that it shouldn’t discourage people from voting in races higher up the ballot.

“That right there makes zero sense,” she says. “What happens in a bottom-of-the-barrel municipal district election has nothing to do with what happens at the top.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a comment from council member Christina Jones and to clarify that the party endorsed in the Raleigh City Council District E race in 2019.

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