CHARLOTTE – Charlotte City Councilmembers Ed Driggs and Danté Anderson were among 21 Mecklenburg County residents to enter the 2023 campaign season.
Mecklenburg County Board of Elections held the first day of candidate filing July 7, attracting applicants for five city races. Filing will continue through July 21.
Here’s a breakdown so far of Charlotte races.
Charlotte City Council
• Mayor: Vi Lyles
• At-Large Members: Dimple Ajmera, LaWana Mayfield, James Mitchell & Braxton Winston
• District Members: Danté Anderson (D-1), Malcolm Graham (D-2), Victoria Watlington (D-3), Reneé Johnson (D-4), Marjorie Molina (D-5), Tariq Bokhari (D-6) & Ed Driggs (D-7)
South Charlotte Republican Ed Driggs is running for a sixth term on the council. Driggs served in the military and worked in the international finance industry. Driggs ran unopposed in the last election and a Democrat hasn’t run against him since 2017.
Danté Anderson was the only other member of the Charlotte City Council to file. The Democrat claimed the District 1 seat in 2022 after defeating Charlene Henderson and Billy Maddalon in the Democratic primary.
Two challengers have emerged for District 3 rep Victoria Watlington’s seat. Both lost to Watinlington during the 2022 election cycle. Democrat Tiawana Brown has a unique story in terms of rebounding from incarceration to empower women while working at American Airlines and attending Johnson C. Smith University. Republican James Bowers inspires others through faith. He is an entrepreneur, author, speaker and active member at Victory Christian Center.
Ben Copeland, a finance major at UNC Charlotte, is running for one of the four available at-large seats. The Democrat graduated from the International Baccalaureate program at Myers Park High School in 2021.
Charlene Henderson, who serves as a precinct chair for the Democratic Party and on the city’s Community Relations Committee, is running for an at-large seat. She was a runner-up in Democratic primaries for district seats in 2022 and 2019.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
• At-Large Members: Elyse Dashew, Jennifer De La Jara, Lenora Shipp
• District Members: Melissa Easley (D-1), Thelma Byers-Bailey (D-2), Gregory “Dee” Rankin (D-3), Stephanie Sneed (D-4), Lisa Cline (D-5) & Summer Nunn (D-6)
All three at-large seats are available but only Charlotte Democrat Shamaiye Haynes has joined the race. Hayes founded the Charlotte Community Think Tank, an organization focused on improving education, particularly on the west side of town. School board members Stephanie Sneed and Thelma Byers-Bailey were “founding thinkers” of the group.
