Let the Cabarrus County Democratic Party reintroduce themselves
The party aims to reconnect with voters it lost in the past
Rosa Culver-Sims is looking to help reintroduce the Cabarrus County Democratic Party to the community, after recent elections where the party has struggled to win local elections.
It might be an uphill climb for the Cabarrus Democrats to win in a county that leans Republican and which President Donald Trump won by eight percentage points in November, but Culver-Sims is hopeful.
“I am extremely optimistic,” Culver-Sims, who was first elected interim Cabarrus County Democratic Party Chair in January, told The Cabarrus Compass about her party’s prospects going forward after securing re-election during the Democratic Party County Convention, which was held Saturday morning at Concord High School.
Much of her hopefulness comes from listening to disaffected residents who have strayed from the party over the years to learn how she and other party leaders can reconnect with these people.
“I’ve listened to people talk about the Democratic party went off and left me,” she said. “So the focus that I’ve told the officers: We’re going to get back into the community. We need to make connections with the people that have pulled away from us. We need to go where they are, and find out what it is that they’re interested in.”
It helps that Culver-Sims, who moved to the area about 15 years ago from her native Detroit, has a background in community organizing, which dates back to her teenage years. She also ran the nonprofit U-SNAP-BAC (United Streets Networking and Planning; Building a Community), which works to “empower residents to impact the future of the city of Detroit —through coalition building, resource development, joint planning and programming,” according to its website.
There is no secret sauce for what the party needs to do to become more of a political force in the county. “We’re going to be knocking on doors and talking to people and going out to where they are,” Culver-Sims said.
There are currently around 43,000 registered Democrats in Cabarrus, less than both the Republicans (roughly 52,000) and unaffiliated residents (60,000), according to state voting data. But just as unaffiliated voters broke for the Republicans during the November elections, they could break for Democratic candidates in the future.
“We need to make sure that we’re talking to them,” Culver-Sims said about reaching the unaffiliated voters, noting the party plans to train volunteers about how to effectively reach residents who could be receptive to Democratic messages.
Besides Culver-Sims, the other elected party leaders, who will serve the next two years, include AJ Clark, who is the 1st Vice Chair; Dorsey Ward, who is the 2nd Vice Chair; Katherine Jeanes, who is the 3rd Vice Chair, but will leave her post in two months, during which time Ann Loraine will take over; and Cheryll Brevard as Secretary.
“I look at this as a vote of partnership that we’re going to build over the next two years to get back to our community and to make sure our community knows that we are here for them and we are them,” Culver-Sims told the crowd of delegates after getting re-elected.
Clark, who is the president of the Logan Community Association, “is a man of few words…but he is absolutely a man of power and action,” Culver-Sims said.
During the convention, the party delegates also approved a resolution to keep Cabarrus municipal elections nonpartisan. It is a rebuke of an effort by certain members of the Cabarrus County Republican Party to make Cabarrus municipal elections partisan.
N.C. Rep. Brian Echevarria, R-Cabarrus, introduced a House bill earlier this year that aimed to make all municipal elections in Cabarrus County partisan.
Echevarria later said he removed the bill, HB 271, after he spoke with people who both supported and opposed it. He would like to see the topic ultimately be decided as a referendum on the ballot for residents to vote on in the future.
During the convention, Martin Ericson, chair of the Cabarrus County Board of Elections, said HB 271 is currently residing in the Election Law House Standing Committee.
Cabarrus County elections have always been nonpartisan, as have most municipal elections across the state. Of the more than 500 cities and towns across the North Carolina, only five, including Charlotte, hold partisan elections for mayor and council, according to a 2023 WFAE article.
The bill, HB 271, isn’t pulled. It’s in Elections Committee in the House. It was supposed to have been heard twice but was taken off the agenda when municipal leaders showed up in Raleigh at the meeting to oppose it. Twice. Twice leaders have driven to Raleigh only to have it taken off the agenda minutes before the meeting started. If this concerns you, you should reach out to our House representatives - Jonathan Almond, Brian Echevarria and Grant Campbell. I think most people think this has gone away.