Foxx's victory may signal shift to Dems in Charlotte
When Pat McCrory first ran for mayor of Charlotte in 1995, the Republican Party enjoyed a home-field advantage: 73 percent of the city voters were white, many of whom reliably chose the GOP on election day.
But the electorate that Republican John Lassiter faced against Democrat Anthony Foxx last week was different.
Whites are down to 57 percent of voters, a result of more minorities moving to Charlotte and white families moving to outlying counties. The percent of registered Republicans has also declined, from 36 percent to 26 percent.
In the wake of Foxx's 3,239-vote victory over Lassiter on Tuesday in the Charlotte mayoral race, both political parties are asking whether the city's demographic shift will give Democrats a significant advantage in future local elections.
Besides capturing the mayor's office, Democrats now have eight of 11 seats on the Charlotte City Council for the first time.
"This is a blue city in a blue county now," said Democratic political consultant Dan McCorkle.
Some of Charlotte's changes, such as a drop in registered Republicans, mirror the nation. But there are other unique forces that are transforming the city.
One is that Charlotte has become an attractive destination for African-Americans from across the country. A Brookings Institution study earlier this decade found that from 1995 to 2000, the Charlotte metropolitan area had the third-highest numbers of black migration in the nation, trailing only Atlanta and Dallas.
The result: The percent of black Charlotte voters has increased from 26 percent in 1995 to 35 percent. African-Americans historically vote for Democratic candidates, and they supported Barack Obama nationwide by 96 percent, according to CNN.
In 1995, a little more than 1 percent of voters classified themselves with the Mecklenburg Board of Elections as other than black or white. Today, 8 percent of city voters are Asian, two or more races, or refuse to identify their race or ethnicity.
Another factor is that Charlotte is running out of room to grow.
The strength of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Republican Party is the so-called "Wedge" - a pie-shaped area of the city, between Independence Boulevard and South Boulevard. Those south Charlotte precincts are filled with affluent subdivisions that historically gave Republican candidates margins of hundreds of voters.
Over the last 30 years, that Republican wedge has grown southward - from Pineville-Matthews Road to Ballantyne - as the city annexed formerly rural areas. But there is little undeveloped land in which to build new subdivisions that's not in Union County or South Carolina.
"There are still new red (precincts) down there, but they aren't in Charlotte," said Robert Bryan, the chairman of the Mecklenburg County Republican Party.
Charlotte City Attorney Mac McCarley, who handles annexations, said he doesn't expect the city to annex areas outside Mecklenburg County unless it's a sliver of a subdivision straddling a county line. He said there aren't many areas of undeveloped land in the city, except for areas of west and south of Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.
Precincts near those areas showed almost a 50-50 split for Foxx and Lassiter.
Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress, said Charlotte is "hitting a wall" in how much it can expand with new single-family homes.
The people who choose to live in a more urban city - often young and single - tend to be Democrats, he said.
"Density (in housing) equals Democrats," Teixeira said.
Teixeira said few metro areas in the nation have seen a larger swing from Republican to Democratic as Charlotte in the last 30 years.
Democratic registration in Charlotte has been consistent. It was 51.5 percent of voters in 1995 and is 49.5 percent today. But today's Democrats are more likely to vote with the party than Democrats 15 years ago, some of whom were white "Dixiecrats" who regularly voted for Republicans, McCorkle said. Unaffiliated voters jumped from 12 percent to 25 percent over the same period.
The editor of the Web site Qcitymetro, which covers the city's African-American community, wrote an article last week that asked whether McCrory was the city's "last white mayor." The article, written by Glenn Burkins, a former Observer deputy managing editor, argued that a future mayor could still be white but would have to "recognize and embrace" the city's diversity.
McCorkle said such bold pronouncements are premature.
He said Foxx benefited from the party's voter registration efforts leading to the 2008 presidential election, and that Foxx was an excellent, well-funded candidate.
"I think the Democrats had the right candidates and raised tremendous money," McCorkle said. "Had Lassiter run against some of our candidates from the past, he would have won with tremendous margins."
Bryan said local Republicans may have gotten "fat and happy" after so many McCrory landslides in mayoral elections. Turnout in a number of Republican strongholds was lower than expected.
"If we had gotten outstanding turnout in our bigger precincts, it could have made more of a difference," Bryan said. "We have to have a better, stronger party infrastructure."
He also said future Charlotte candidates must be able to reach out to minority voters, who are growing in the city. But at the same time, he acknowledged, Lassiter did that, campaigning in all parts of the city.
He still lost badly in predominantly African-American precincts, losing one by 1,037 to 3.
Bryan said some Republicans said Lassiter shouldn't have campaigned in African-American areas and instead focused on exciting his base.
"But I sent him an e-mail and said he did the right thing," Bryan said. "It's good from a long-term sense of the party."
One of the most prominent local Republicans in office is now Charlotte City Council member Edwin Peacock, who was re-elected to his second term Tuesday.
"The party hasn't been ahead of the curve on early voting, and No. 2, we haven't had real strong candidate recruitment," Peacock said. "My role, as a party leader, is to find other good candidates."
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling in Raleigh said Republicans could struggle no matter which candidates run.
"If Charlotte's growth in the future is in infill rather than sprawl, and in uptown condos," he said, "then Charlotte might not elect a Republican mayor again."
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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Public Policy Polling, Yahoo News, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps
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