Democratic strategists say Democratic voters were punishing longtime Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham for her daughter’s high-profile party switch when they ousted her from office on Super Tuesday. Cotham, the mother of state Rep. Tricia Cotham, lost her seat on the board after 12 years in office as she failed to finish in the top three of candidates in the Democratic at-large primary.
Her candidacy was, in some ways, an opportunity for Democrats to act on their frustration with the younger Cotham’s choice, observers said. “That was the community’s way of sending a very clear message,” local Democratic strategist Annetta Watkins-Foard said.
Despite the controversy surrounding the Cotham name, local Democratic strategist Dan McCorkle said he was surprised by the margin in Cotham’s loss, given her high level of name recognition and long tenure in public office. “She had 12 years of service. And to lose that kind of margin, I mean, we thought there was a chance she could lose, but not like this much. That’s incredible,” he said.
Pat Cotham told The Charlotte Observer she has “no regrets” as she reflects on her campaign and time in office, but acknowledged “pushback from some groups within the party” may have affected her chances.
Did Tricia Cotham drive Pat Cotham’s loss?
McCorkle said that while some in the party had concerns with Cotham before her daughter’s party switch over her work with Republicans on the county commission, she’d still previously been able to get considerable support at the polls. “There was a suspicion of Pat. It was in the back of everyone’s mind, but they continued to vote for her because Pat would come to Democratic stuff and be a Democrat,” he said.
But things changed when Tricia Cotham became a Republican, he said, something “that had almost a year to fester in people’s minds.” Her decision was especially frustrating for Democrats because it was so consequential for Republican control in Raleigh, McCorkle added. The younger Cotham rankled many Democrats last year when she switched parties from Democrat to Republican, giving the GOP a veto-proof supermajority in Raleigh.
The switch made national news and allowed Republicans to pass a bill restricting abortion access. On Tuesday, the elder Cotham finished fourth in a field of five candidates vying for three at-large seats, with 17.6 percent of the vote. It was a precipitous drop in support from when she was the top vote-getter among at-large candidates in 2022.
The three winners in Tuesday’s primary — incumbents Leigh Altman and Arthur Griffin and newcomer Yvette Townsend-Ingram — have secured their spots on the board as no Republicans or third-party candidates filed to run in the at-large race. Watkins-Foard said it’s rare to see a longtime incumbent fall off in terms of votes like Cotham did. But with the younger Cotham not on the ballot in the primaries, her mother’s race presented the sole opportunity for voters to act on “a whole lot of feelings.”
“I just think that this was the community’s way of getting back at her,” she said. The connection between the two Cothams was highlighted on social media after Tuesday’s race, with North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton tagging Tricia Cotham in a post on X/Twitter, about her mother’s loss.
“Hey girl! we hope you’re next!” the post said. Asked whether she thought her daughter’s party switch affected her reelection bid, Cotham said that while “everybody seems to feel like they’re an expert on my daughter and myself,” she’s faced “pushback for a long time” from some groups within the Democratic Party.
“A lot of these groups try to bully elected officials, and I wasn’t going to be bullied,” she said. Cotham said that while she’s “still a Democrat,” she was more focused on her work as a commissioner than the party. “I listened to all sides. And I didn’t take an oath to the Democratic Party when I was sworn in. I took an oath to the Constitution. I just tried to do my job,” she said.
Did low turnout affect Pat Cotham’s reelection campaign?
In addition to her relationships within her party, Cotham noted that Tuesday’s election also had low turnout, with just 18.7 percent of Mecklenburg’s eligible voters casting ballots. “There were a lot of things that made a difference, and that was one of them,” she said.
Lower turnout can be especially impactful in an election like the race for at-large seats on the county commission, Watkins-Foard noted, when you have “multiple candidates in a particular race.” “Anytime the vote is split, it can go one way or another,” she said.
A low turnout primary also may have meant a higher concentration of “hardcore Democrats” with stronger feelings about Cotham in the electorate, according to McCorkle. “She didn’t have the less-intense Democrats coming out to vote,” he said.
What could Pat Cotham have done differently?
McCorkle noted that despite the uproar over her daughter’s party switch and speculation that she could be in a tighter race than past years, Cotham wasn’t seen frequently at Democratic Party events or campaigning around town. “She ran a very low-key campaign. She’s never run really big and boisterous campaigns,” he said.
Her campaign could have been helped, he suggested, by having a more satisfying answer to questions about Tricia Cotham that emphasized she was still a Democrat who supports “Democratic values” such as access to reproductive health care. “She would have had to have been stronger saying, ‘She’s not me,’” he said.
Cotham told the Observer she hasn’t typically run large-scale campaigns throughout her career. “I just kept working. I just went about things differently,” she said.
Ultimately, Cotham said, she’s been gratified by the number of people who’ve reached out to her in the days since the election to thank her for her service and she has “no regrets.”
“There’s extremists on both sides. Certainly the ones on the far left have pushed back on me,” she said. “But, you know, I was focused on being a county commissioner for all people, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, whether they’re in jail, homeless or just got here yesterday. I was focused on that. I wasn’t focused on party politics,” she said.
This article appears courtesy of our media partner The Charlotte Observer.