Is the Cabarrus County Republican Party at war with itself?
Several local Republicans address the state of the party.
A few days after the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners voted to elect Lamarie Austin-Stripling to replace Chris Measmer, who was recently appointed as a state senator, several concerned citizens, who formed a group called Cabarrus Citizens for Government Integrity, filed a lawsuit, alleging that proper procedures were not followed in the selection of Austin-Stripling.
In addition to hastily setting up the April 10 special meeting to select Measmer’s replacement at 8:15 a.m., during a time when commissioner Lynn Shue could not make it, as he undergoes daily dialysis treatment, the lawsuit alleges that Measmer, who had not yet been sworn in as a senator, was still technically a commissioner and thus, there was not yet a vacancy.
Measmer, who attended the meeting, voted “present,” which counted as an affirmative vote for Austin-Stripling. Commissioners Laura Blackwell Lindsey, who is the vice chair, and Larry Pittman also voted for Austin-Stripling, while commissioner Kenny Wortman was absent, as a protest in solidarity with Shue.
A judge last week granted a temporary restraining order stopping Austin-Stripling from joining the board. The order is scheduled to expire at 2:30 p.m. on April 25, though a judicial decision could come sooner.
The lawsuit is the second such legal action that has been taken against Cabarrus County this year. Former County Manager Mike Downs in March sued the county, claiming he had not received severance pay and bonus sums totaling $488,000 after being abruptly fired “for cause” in January.
These legal actions appear to be endemic of a larger problem that has existed within the county for some time: The Cabarrus County Republican Party, which is currently composed of almost 52,000 people, according to state data, while consistently winning local and statewide races, seems to be internally fractured, if not at war with itself.
Many of the residents who make up Cabarrus Citizens for Government Integrity are Republicans, including Holly Edwards, who unsuccessfully campaigned for chair of the Cabarrus County GOP last month, losing to incumbent Lanny Lancaster.
In an interview with The Cabarrus Compass, Edwards acknowledged the Cabarrus Republican Party was not in a strong and unified position.
“It’s definitely in a very bad place,” Edwards said. “It’s in a very adversarial place between sides.”
Mike Downs, who had been county manager for more than a decade, is a Republican as are most of the county commissioners, who have often engaged in friendly fire with each other, as heated arguments regularly erupt during commission meetings.
Over the past several years, there have been several notable examples of dissension within the party, which have often played out in public:
Former County Commission Chair Steve Morris, a Republican, found himself the target of an investigation in May 2023 by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation for “allegations of potential collusion and fraud.” The request for the investigation, which lasted for more than a year but ultimately found no wrongdoing of any kind, came from Midland town council member Richard Wise, another Republican.
Several residents in March 2024, including Wise, criticized Morris, who had just lost reelection, of allegedly working with former N.C. House Rep. Kevin Crutchfield to increase the commission from five members to seven. During public comments, Wise said that Morris was “pitching a scheme” to remain in office, which would “be a huge scandal, probably the biggest in Cabarrus County history.” Both Morris and Crutchfield denied trying to expand the commission.
Holly Edwards and Crutchfield filed protests after losing close elections during the March 2024 Republican primaries that they felt were impacted by undue influence by the Cabarrus County GOP leadership. They alleged that the Cabarrus County Republican Party unfairly influenced the outcome of the races by encouraging voters to support particular candidates.
Commissioner Kenny Wortman left the Republican Party in October 2023 to become an unaffiliated voter. He had previously posted on social media about the lies and hostility he found to be associated with both the local Republican and Democratic parties. Brian Echevarria, who was chair of the Cabarrus GOP at the time, called Wortman’s decision “a betrayal of Republican voters who trusted he would represent their conservative interests once in office.”
Wortman called out Laura Blackwell Lindsey, a Republican who at the time was a member of the Cabarrus County Board of Education, for not being forthright with the public during a BOE meeting in October 2024. He accused her of impropriety related to the county’s interactions with the Local Government Commission, which provides financial oversight for all of the municipalities across the state.
The Cabarrus commissioners, in a 3-1 vote, fired longtime County Manager Mike Downs with “just cause” during the closed session of the Jan. 21 meeting. Chris Measmer, who was the commission chair, wrote a termination letter to Downs, saying that his firing was largely a result of the county’s purchase of the ACN building and allegedly not presenting the LGC with key information, including all of the market appraisals.
Measmer, another stalwart Republican, consistently emphasized the importance of transparency and accountability during his time as chair, yet was criticized earlier this year for not disclosing he had a prior business relationship with Sean Newton, the new county manager, before the commissioners approved Newton’s contract. This led to a protracted argument about the lack of trust that existed between Kenny Wortman and both Measmer and Lindsey.
Downs, a few weeks after being fired, sued the county over nearly $500,000 in unpaid severance and bonus sums. Downs’ lawyer Mark Stafford accused Measmer, Lindsey and Pittman of “acting as a cabal of ill will in terminating Mr. Downs and replacing him with an inexperienced crony, minion, and clandestine former partner of Measmer,” according to the lawsuit.
Several Republicans were disillusioned after Lanny Lancaster won reelection to serve another two years as chair of the Cabarrus County GOP during the Republican Convention last month. They alleged the voting for the GOP leadership was largely influenced to ensure Lancaster and his allies would be victorious. (As a reporter for the Independent Tribune, I planned to cover the event, but Lancaster stopped me, telling me that the media was not allowed.) An unnamed person who attended the convention told me: “I have never been to an event so chaotic, so unorganized and with such a feeling of hate for certain individuals in my life. I will never ever attend another Republican convention. I was embarrassed to say I was a Republican and I will be changing to unaffiliated from now on.”
‘All they care about is power’
Kenny Wortman told the Cabarrus Compass that the chaos that had been unfolding within the Republican Party was a key reason he opted to get out.
The local party “has been at war since before I left it,” Wortman explained, noting that GOP leaders, including Lancaster, endorse preferred candidates who will act as “puppets and yes men and women.”
He has found himself in several heated disagreements with his fellow commissioners, including Measmer and Lindsey. At one point during the March 17 regular meeting, when things got especially tense, Lindsey told Wortman: “I don’t trust you, Kenny, and I have absolutely no reason to trust you because you’ve given me no reason to trust you.”
More than anything, Wortman emphasized, the leaders of the Cabarrus Republican Party are fixated on gaining as much power as possible. “All they care about is the power and control,” he said.
Wortman, who says he still votes for many Republican candidates, hinted at a possible breaking point the Cabarrus GOP could experience if it continues to alienate people within its own party.
“How long can you cannibalize your own party before it absolutely dissolves?” he said.
Cabarrus GOP “most aligned that it has ever been”
Lanny Lancaster has a very different take on the party he leads. He said the Cabarrus GOP has “been the most aligned that it has ever been,” as evidenced by the fact that Republican candidates won every local and statewide race in November.
“How could we be fractured and have those kind of results?” Lancaster told the Cabarrus Compass. He added: “We have the best team of elected officials we’ve ever had.”
In addition to Lancaster as Cabarrus GOP chair, the other party leaders include Vice-Chair Jim Quick, Secretary Deborah Bamford, Treasurer Lamarie Austin-Stripling and General Counsel Paula Yost.
Laura Blackwell Lindsey, who is a member of the Republican Party Executive Committee, echoed Lancaster’s enthusiasm, saying that, “I think that our local party is more unified than I have ever seen it.”
“I am excited to be a part of the changes that are being made not just here but on the state level as well,” she added.
Lancaster acknowledged that there are “a few outliers” who may agree with the Republican Party only about 75% of the time, “but I think that is a very, very small number.”
The small group of people attempting to cause problems, Lancaster said, has not affected the robust attendance at Cabarrus County GOP meetings.
“Our events we have at our headquarters are the biggest they’ve ever been,” Lancaster noted. “It’s awesome right now.”
Lancaster is also excited about Austin-Stripling’s selection to be the next commissioner, saying “the party is extremely supportive of her.”
When asked about Wortman’s criticisms of the party, Lancaster, who said the Cabarrus GOP had the biggest Republican Convention in the state (there were 321 official delegates), declined to respond to any specifics.
“I have no clue what Kenny Wortman is talking about,” Lancaster said. “I don’t even acknowledge Kenny Wortman because he seems so off the rails…I’ve never seen him at a Republican Party event, so I don’t really know how he could have an intelligent answer to anything about the Republican Party.”
Lancaster encouraged Republicans who might have reservations about the party to come to the GOP headquarters.
“I don’t understand what the division would be,” he said. “They’re more than welcome to be part of our team just like any other Republican.”
Not the way it used to be
Steve Morris grew accustomed in recent years to being routinely criticized by the public during commissioner meetings. But it was not always like that, especially when he first got elected as a county commissioner in 2012.
“There were folks that might have more extreme views than others, but the basic beliefs, I think, were similar enough that they (the different factions) were able to coexist peacefully together,” Morris said.
Having regularly interacted with other counties across the state over the years, Morris noted that Cabarrus County had frequently been “held up as an example of a harmonious government.”
But a real turning point occurred around a decade ago, Morris said, when the dialogue on the national level “became somewhat extreme and I think that people felt like they had been given permission to behave badly.”
Over time, civility and respect for other people’s opinions and beliefs “seemed to be somewhat diluted,” Morris said. “The behavior that in previous years would have been undesirable and offensive to a lot of folks now was not.”
This has created an environment where people feel empowered to attack those personally with whom they disagree.
Morris is optimistic the party can eventually get back to a more stable footing, but he doesn’t think it will happen anytime soon.
“I am always hopeful that that could happen,” he said, “but based on current activities, I don’t see that in the near future.”
I think Chris Cooper may have emphasized this before, but the downstream impact of national politics in NC is very real. I think Morris is on to something when he alludes to Trump’s rise (roughly a decade ago) aligning with a fall in respect. Although I’d imagine the pre-Trump, Tea Party-esque faction was unhappy with GOP leadership, assuming that Morris represented a piece of that leadership.
Like the unnamed person, I will never attend another Cabarrus GOP convention.