The Wake County Democratic Party continues to face internal criticism over its endorsements in Raleigh’s nonpartisan municipal elections.
The latest objection came in the form of an official complaint to the North Carolina Democratic Party from Seth Morris, an attorney and member of the county party’s Executive Committee. Morris, a District E resident, said in his August complaint that the county party’s endorsement of incumbent Christina Jones over John Cerqueira in the Raleigh City Council District E election violates the state party’s code of conduct.
The North Carolina Democratic Party disagrees. Last week, the state party’s Council of Review dismissed Morris’s complaint and affirmed that the Wake County party is free to endorse whomever it wants, including in races where Democrats are running against other Democrats.
According to Morris’s complaint, which the INDY viewed, the Wake Democrats’ endorsement of Jones violates the portion of the state party’s Code of Conduct that instructs party members not to behave in a way that is “dishonest,” “deceitful,” against the party’s best interest, or harmful to its reputation.
Morris claimed that a voter who receives a Wake County Democratic Party’s slate card listing the party’s local endorsements could reasonably believe that Jones is the only Democrat running in District E, and that Cerqueira either is not a Democrat or is otherwise unqualified to receive the Democratic party’s endorsement.
Jones and Cerqueira’s responses to the county party’s candidate questionnaire suggest that they’re both aligned with its broad goals and values on topics like housing, transportation, inclusivity, and transparent governance. Both candidates actively sought the county party’s endorsement, and Cerqueira also sought and received endorsement from the NC Democratic Party’s Jewish Caucus. (Caucus members had urged the county party not to endorse Jones, and District A council member Mary Black, for their support of a Gaza ceasefire resolution last winter and their closeness to an activist who is the subject of a federal investigation into an antisemitism complaint, among other concerns.)
In the complaint, Morris said he wrote to county Democratic party chair Kevyn Creech asking her to explain why the party endorsed Jones over Cerqueira given that they both appeared to be qualified Democrats but received no response.
“Deciding to promote one Democrat over another in a nonpartisan race, without any clear justification, has the inherently deceitful and dishonest effect of misleading Democrats and Democrat-supporting voters and misusing the goodwill associated with the broader Democratic Party brand to influence the election’s outcome in the preferred direction of the [WCDP Executive Council],” Morris wrote.
(The party’s Executive Council, which Creech chairs, is a group of 11 party leaders who make endorsement decisions for the party. It is different from Morris’s County Executive Committee, a large group that meets periodically to set policy for the county party.)
“This intentional effort to warp voters’ perceptions of the District E candidates will have the downstream effect of fomenting disunity within the Party and sowing doubt about the trustworthiness of party institutions,” Morris continued.
Morris asked the state party to overturn the Wake Democrats’ endorsement of Jones. But the state party’s Council of Review does not have the authority to do that, according to a message from Council of Review chair Sam Ervin obtained by the INDY.
In the message, Ervin detailed the Council of Review’s rationale for dismissing Morris’s complaint.
“As submitted, the grievance does not allege anything other than that a voter might misconstrue the effect of the Wake County Party’s decision to endorse Ms. Jones over Mr. Cerqueira,” Ervin wrote. “The grievance does not allege that any party official has made any inaccurate statements or did anything else prohibited by the [Plan of Organization, the NC Democratic Party’s governing document]; instead, it is quite clear from the grievance that the endorsement procedure was an established one and that Mr. Cerqueira participated in that process, albeit unsuccessfully.”
Ervin concluded that even if everything Morris alleged in the complaint is true, “no violation of the Plan of Organization or the Code of Conduct occurred.”
In response to Morris’s complaint, and prior to the Council of Review decision, Creech forcefully defended the Executive Council’s endorsement process. In an email to current and past county party leaders that the INDY viewed, Creech stressed that the county party endorses in nonpartisan races every year using a rigorous, consistent process and stood by the party’s decision not to publicly discuss the reasoning behind its endorsements.
“It is our protocol to avoid publicly disparaging Democrats running for office,” Creech wrote.
In her email, Creech asked recipients to “sign a letter of support for our WCDP Council and our processes,” linking to a Google Form that is now closed.
Creech ended the email with “a non-exhaustive list of the negative tactics WCDP and even some candidates have endured” before, during, and after the endorsement process.
She said the county party’s executive director, Wesley Knott, “received a late night call” from an unnamed Raleigh elected official who said the county party “better not endorse in 2024 if we know what’s good for us.” She said in May, at a public fundraiser for down-ballot candidates, a federally elected official “offered me $100,000 for WCDP if I’d agree to skip all nonpartisan endorsements this year.”
Some local and federal officials and several members of the state party’s Jewish Caucus threatened to pull donations and support from party leadership if they went ahead with their nonpartisan endorsements, Creech said. She also referenced a letter from a group of high-profile Raleigh Democrats, including former mayors, former council members, and former county party chairs, urging against local endorsements.
According to Creech, the endorsements pushback comes from a vocal minority composed mainly of these well-known Raleigh Democrats and members of the Wake branch of the NC Democratic Party’s Jewish Caucus.
“Where we have not had pushback is from the broader Wake County constituency,” including the broader constituency in Raleigh,” she wrote.
Creech also wrote that the NC Coordinated Campaign—the campaigning arm of the state Democratic party that works to elect Democrats at the federal and state level and provides resources to local candidates—threatened to withhold assistance from the Wake County Democratic Party if it made nonpartisan endorsements. She said at a meeting between her, Knott, and NC Coordinated Campaign leadership, the Coordinated Campaign offered the county party assistance with events and data sharing “but only if we didn’t do any nonpartisan endorsements.” But endorsement interviews with candidates were already underway, Creech said, adding that a Coordinated Campaign leader told her “that ‘counsel’ was telling them they couldn’t coordinate with us if we did these endorsements.
“In my 12 years serving WCDP, this prohibition has never been made,” Creech wrote. In late August, she added, both a Raleigh city council candidate and school board candidate weren’t allowed to participate in events with the Coordinated Campaign because the party had made endorsements in those nonpartisan races.
Creech declined to elaborate further on the party’s relationship with the Coordinated Campaign but says it remains “in flux” and reiterated that the endorsements controversy has rippled through the county party’s work to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
“This campaign from a couple of groups of people in Raleigh to stymie our normal work efforts because of a couple of seats they were worried about … has had a negative impact on every single race in Wake County from the bottom to the top,” she says. “It’s very short-sighted and unfortunate and incredibly and unnecessarily divisive.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to provide context about the NC Democratic Party Jewish Caucus’s concerns about Raleigh City Council members Mary Black and Christina Jones.
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a corps member for Report for America. Reach her at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].