Meet Anderson Clayton: A Fresh Face Looking to Breathe Life Back Into Her Party as North Carolina Democratic Chair
Anderson Clayton, the Person County native, was recently elected as the Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Source for photo: WUNC
To say the 2022 elections were disappointing for North Carolina Democrats would be an understatement. Candidate for U.S. Senate Cheri Beasley fell short in her race, the court systems were packed with Republican judges, and the North Carolina Republicans gained all but one seat needed in the state legislature to override the Governor’s veto. Before election day, Democrats had already fallen short in 41 districts, where they weren’t able to recruit a candidate to run under their party name. Though some of those seats could be considered Republican safe holds, at least 11 of those seats had the possibility of a competitive race. Many people, inside and outside of the party, attributed these shortcomings to Democratic party strategies (or rather a lack thereof) to earn votes across all sectors of North Carolina’s electorate, specifically within rural areas and amongst younger voters.
However, the Democratic party’s strategy is bound to change with the entrance of a fresh face bringing with it new energy. In February 2023, Anderson Clayton was elected the North Carolina Democratic Party Chair, becoming the youngest party chair in the country at only 25 years old. Clayton’s win for the position was considered an upset by many as she ousted Dr. Bobbie Richardson, a well-respected party chair with a long history in the North Carolina Democratic party. Clayton used her own experience and connections as the Person County Democratic Party Chair and her passion for reshaping the party after an underwhelming election season to win over her constituents. Throughout her campaign, she emphasized that different states have different needs and the purpose of an accessible state-wide party is to elevate those needs over what the national party may think a state like North Carolina needs. According to Clayton, close-to-home issues in North Carolina that Democrats can really impact are things like broadband access, affordable healthcare, and supporting small businesses. She also wants to “empower local county parties to speak on these issues” to their constituents.
Clayton’s roots in Person County serve as a pertinent background for understanding her approach to her new position. Clayton described her home county as very rural where “there are two things you don’t talk about at the dinner table: religion and politics.” Despite this, Clayton described being excited to enter the political sphere as a registered voter when she turned 18 and even interested in getting involved in her university’s student government. After running for and winning Student Body President at Appalachian State University her senior year, she graduated in 2019 and found herself in rural Iowa working for Kamala Harris’s campaign for the presidency. Clayton described this experience as exhausting because national Democratic campaigns seemed to look at rural areas, similar to her own county, as unimportant like “dirt on their shoe.”
From this experience, she ended up back in her home county and became Person County’s Democratic Chair in 2021. In this position, Clayton was attracting media attention for her approach to gaining rural voters. She wanted to show Democrats that rural voters were an untapped resource for their party with “more grit and more resilience” than the party seemed to think. Clayton showed a commitment to year-round, county-level politics for almost two years. She conducted research for RuralOrganizing.org by surveying 70 rural democratic organizers across the nation concerning voting strategies, hosted community events with her local Person County Democrats, and “really just met people where they were at” to talk about politics. Ultimately these strategies paid off, and Clayton showed the strength of her rural constituents by flipping the Roxboro City Council as well as a North Carolina House Seat, which was crucial considering Republicans fell one seat short of being able to override gubernatorial vetoes. Clayton wants to take her Person County strategies state-wide and start by “showing up in [rural] places even though [Democrats] might not win an election in the next decade.”
Outside of her focus on rural voters, which is certainly new for North Carolina Democrats, Clayton has gained attention for becoming the youngest party chair in the country. When asked about the biggest challenge she has faced with being younger in a world dominated by older politicians she laughed and replied, “sometimes when I walk into a room people don’t think I’m the party chair… it's really an element of surprise for the party.” Clayton conveyed that her age gives her a certain confidence in her ability to represent young people and their views which is extremely important coming out of an election that saw historic turnout for voters in the 18-29 age range. Her view of young voters seemed to be similar to her view of rural voters in that both groups currently sit dormant in many aspects of political participation. However, Clayton’s age gives her a unique qualification in strategically reaching out to younger voters that could be key to her party’s future success.
Looking forward to her term, Clayton is focused on campaigning and organizing for the 2024 election cycle. She emphasized that for Democrats in North Carolina, 2024 will be “a fight for our lives” that, if lost, could end in disastrous consequences for abortion rights, climate change policies, and basic human rights. Clayton plans on bringing new branding for North Carolina Democrats that has a renewed focus on rural and young voters that will hopefully yield better results than the 2022 cycle. Clayton is excited to “give people inspiration to do things they never thought they could, things like winning a governor’s office or taking back the state legislature” throughout her term. In Clayton’s own words concerning those who doubt the big goals she has for the party she responded, “I have been proving people wrong my whole life and am excited to hopefully do it again.” Anderson Clayton’s energy and determination to breathe life back into North Carolina’s Democratic Party as state chair should leave those within the party ready for a plethora of change, all of which will hopefully prove fruitful for their party’s future goals in a historically red state.