Anderson Clayton's Team Opens the Door for Rural and Young Voters in North Carolina
When we support youthful energy and a democratic vision, we all win
Right now Republicans are in charge and they’re keeping the whole country struggling because bad ideas are often so hard to realize.
But once the door opens to good ideas and they get strong support, those ideas can flow into realization. Two months ago Anderson Clayton and her team were elected to lead the North Carolina Democratic Party, and the door to a more inclusive future for us all was cracked open.
It takes energy and vision to break through the status quo, as well as a certain fearlessness to not look back. I wondered how Clayton’s life experience prepared her to take on this work.
Her hometown is Roxboro, on the Virginia border, population 8,069. She has said,
My mother was always pro women’s rights, thought education was the way forward out of a rural area. My dad grew up on a tobacco farm. I credit him for a lot of the work ethic that I have.
Clayton majored in journalism and political science at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. In 2016 she got involved in politics when students and the local Democratic Party won a battle to get an early-voting site on campus. Later she was elected President of the App State student body.
Clayton worked for Emily’s List as a campaign field organizer in Iowa for Kamala Harris in 2019 and then for Elizabeth Warren, for Amy McGrath in Kentucky, and for Kathy Manning in North Carolina.
In Iowa, Clayton discovered she could support Democrats in a rural area where they were intimidated by Republicans. In small towns where everybody knew everybody, people’s jobs could be on the line for speaking out as a Democrat. But, says Clayton,
I was new, and I went out to knock doors to make people proud to be Democrats. You have the right to put that Democrat sign in your yard.
Organizing in rural Iowa gave her a new perspective on life back home in Person County. For example, she grew up thinking that because you live in a rural area, you don’t have internet; after her experience in Iowa, she realized that you deserve internet although you live in a rural area.
Clayton believes it will take time to build trust with young and rural voters. But they can be inspired to become involved for the first time, if they feel their voices are heard.
In 2019, with Clayton as Chair of the Person County Democratic Party, her Democratic volunteers and candidates contacted virtually all the voters. As a result, in November they flipped the Roxboro City Council and one state House seat. She said,
The city of Roxboro had never seen Black representation on the City Council before. The city is 51% Black. People talk about affordable housing, sidewalks outside schools, clean water in the city. Our candidates ran on issues that were close to home to people. And we knocked on doors.
After the 2022 election, she worked with RuralOrganizing.org to survey 70 rural progressive organizers in 31 states. It became clear to her that the party has to be active and available year-round to “meet people where they are”, to talk about politics, to host community events, and to hold local government accountable.
She was also chair of the NC Democratic county chairs, all 100 of them. Then in February, 2023, Clayton and the new Vice Chairs were elected to lead the NCDP. During their two-year term they will work in the Goodwin House in Raleigh. Their three main responsibilities are to recruit candidates, to raise money, and to mobilize voters across the state. Clayton says,
I want to make sure that we have a candidate running in every State House and State Senate seat in 2024.
I know she includes every down-ballot local race as well.
Meet Anderson Clayton, at age 25 the youngest Democratic Party State Chair in the country!
At home, she starts her morning with an iced coffee from Tricia’s Espresso in downtown Roxboro. On the road, her mobile office is stocked with her computer, clothes, makeup bag, hot-air brush, and Ponds cream. About the cream — if it’s good enough for U. S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, she told a Washington Post reporter, it’s good enough for her, too.
Earlier this month Anderson was in Western North Carolina and stopped to visit Sam and me. In a few minutes we were friends and partners.
I remember that in 2015 at the Porter Center at Brevard College, Sam and I heard the portrait photographer Platon tell about working with Mark Zuckerberg. A handwritten poster on the wall at Facebook said,
What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
I finally have an answer for that.
Anderson Clayton left Roxboro to take part in national politics. She organized volunteers and talked with voters for four women candidates in three states. Then she went home to successfully build up her own county’s Democratic Party. She showed people they didn’t have to be afraid of breaking the status quo.
Now Clayton’s team is working with Democratic leaders all over North Carolina to create communities where people don’t have to be afraid to speak up for what they need.
What the NCDP needs now from all of us is our partnership in protecting the vote, our rights, and democracy in North Carolina.
And they need our financial support. For example, it costs over $100,000 a month to keep Goodwin House staffed and open. That’s our sate Democratic Party’s home.
Anderson Clayton’s team is the one I want to belong to. It’s a generational alliance!
I'm wishing this exciting, enthusiastic, sincere, capable, intelligent dynamo all the luck in the world!
Hats off to Anderson Clayton...I'm behind you 100%!!
Most definitely, a sign of hope! I hope we can make good use of Anderson Clayton and her team here in T'vania and throughout western NC. Organizing young people, people of color, LGBTQ folks, feminist and womanist women, students of all ages, religious "nones" and liberal spiritual sorts, people with disabilities of various kinds (including aging issues!) etc. Count me in! Thanks, Deda!