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Do Democrats Have Room to Grow in the Suburbs?
A perspective from Alexander H. Jones
One of the most dramatic changes to take place in North Carolina has been the realignment of suburban voters to the Democratic Party. The suburbs of Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and—to a somewhat lesser extent—Winston-Salem have transitioned from an old-fashioned business Republicanism to a relatively solid Democratic politics. As a result, Democrats have remained competitive in the state despite falling precipitously in rural areas. The realignment in suburban North Carolina has been comprehensive and complete.
Or is it complete? Last week’s municipal elections saw a broad movement to the left in some of the most conservative parts of Wake County. Political analysts have often treated Wake and Mecklenburg as North Carolina’s Los Angeles-es. They are supposed to be cosmopolitan and monolithically left-wing. But Democratic dominance in those counties could not have been that total if the party managed to flip upwards of a dozen Republican seats last Tuesday. The reality is that Democrats have room to grow in the outer suburbs of our state’s urban counties.
Consider one Wake County suburb I know well, Wake Forest. Long ago the home of Wake Forest College, the growing town on Raleigh’s eastern edge has been less a liberal college town than a haven for conservatives who appreciate the savory comforts of home cooking and Christian piety. Even as Republicans in other parts of Wake County were gradually wiped off the map, Wake Forest continue to elect Republicans. Mayor Vivan Jones, a Republican-turned-independent, reigned over town hall for 25 years.
Wake Forest had an enduring rurality, even as the subdivisions encroached. But the town reached a key political inflection point earlier this year. Continuing the town’s social conservatism, Vivian Jones canceled a celebration of LGBT History Month. She meant to placate restive evangelicals, but the main response from town residents was outrage. A Democrat named Ben Clapsaddle ran and defeated Jones on a pro-LGBTQ platform. The town, whose storefronts now have gender-inclusive bathrooms, rejected its conservative, rural legacy for a more cosmopolitan vision of the community.
Similar shifts took place across Wake County, if without the sizzle of a culture war. In Wendell, Democrats made gains. Fuquay Varina, the colorfully named town on the remotest outskirts of Wake County, elected a Democratic mayor. In the final count, 21 out of 22 candidates endorsed by the Wake County Republican Party went down to defeat. The Wake GOP was reduced to making a tragicomical boast about a win for Zebulon city council. Wake County, which state political observers had begun to think of as monolithically Democratic, showed additional movement away from Republicans and towards Democrats.
The upshot is that Democrats still have access to low-hanging fruit in the core urban counties. Influenced by my brilliant friend Mac McCorkle, the most astute Democrats in our state have begun to focus on winning “countrypolitan” exurbs like Union and Johnston. But there are still thousands of conservative-leaning swing voters in the suburbs of the state’s urban cores who would likely be easier to flip than countrypolitan voters mired in a conservative rurality. True, Union County is college-educated and could realistically be nudged to the left. But conservative towns like Huntersville and Matthews, closer to Charlotte, are more urban in nature and would blend more naturally into our party’s urban-centric coalition.
Let’s call it a tale of two counties, if you will. When I was growing up, Wake County was a fiery anti-tax stronghold for Bob Dole. In my old neighborhood in North Raleigh, the combative (and rather nasty) attorney Kieran Shanahan represented us on the Raleigh City Council throughout the 90s. He and Mayor Tom Fetzer were of Newt Gingrich’s fiery, tax-hating, Clinton-hating ilk. This was the old Wake County.
North Raleigh has long since become liberal. But the transformations taking place in our state’s suburbs are now so dramatic that even right-wing outer suburbs are beginning to elect Democrats. In the new Wake County, Kamala Harris won 62% of the vote. Simply by extending current trends, future Democratic nominees could push that number closer to 70- or even 75%. That level of increase would deliver the party tens of thousands of popular votes, sealing the gap with the Republicans in statewide races. And for all of the party’s growing hopes about the bluing of the exurbs, changing Wake County from royal blue to a deeper cobalt would be an easier transformation to effect.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
