Former Mecklenburg County state Rep. Wesley Harris was elected Saturday to become the next chair of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party.
Harris defeated the incumbent Drew Kromer, who has served one term and was elected in 2023.
He received roughly 76% of the vote, which was weighted by the size of the precincts throughout the county. Party members voted at the county convention held at Little Rock AME Zion Church in uptown Charlotte.
Harris was elected to the General Assembly in 2018 and represented south Charlotte. He ran for state treasurer in November and lost to Republican Brad Briner.
During his campaign for the party leadership position, Harris pledged to increase voter turnout, which has lagged the state average in recent elections.
Kromer also pledged to do the same thing two years ago when he was first elected. He succeeded in modernizing the party and raised $2.8 million — the most Mecklenburg Democrats have raised in a two-year cycle.
But turnout in the November presidential election again lagged the state average. After the election, the former executive director of the party, Monifa Drayton, resigned and claimed a hostile work environment.
Kromer had demoted her before the election, and Drayton, who is Black, compared working for the party to the Jim Crow era.
