Meet U.S. Senatorial Candidate Sen. Erica Smith!

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The Newsletter of the Wilkes County Democratic Party Issue no. 51 June 2021

Wilkes County Democratic Party

Monthly Executive Meeting

Saturday, June 19th, 2021

10:00am

* In Person at W Kerr Scott Dam & Reservoir - Fish Dam Creek Park *
(Take Reservoir Road off 268 W and cross over the actual dam to the picnic area)

Come celebrate Juneteeth by meeting one of the Democratic Party U.S. Senatorial candidates - NC Senator Erica Smith! She is coming to Wilkes County and wants to meet you and share some of what she would like to do for rural areas like ours.

Smith is an engineer and represented the NC 3rd district since 2015 until January of this year. She is a graduate of NC A&T (go Aggies!) with a degree in mechanical engineering and earned a master's degree in religious studies from Howard University. She worked many years for Boeing as an engineer, and the U.S. Patent office as a patent examiner. She understands tremendous personal loss and deep integrity. Her campaign has stated it will not accept donations from the fossil fuel industry or large corporate PACs. She ran for the Tillis congressional seat last year, so she knows what it takes as a candidate who can win Burr's vacancy. Learn more or contribute to her campaign at EricaForUS.com

Any Wilkes County Democrat is invited!
We hope to see YOU there!

WE NEED YOUR VOICE

If you are a black Wilkes resident and a Democrat, please consider becoming a founding member of the Wilkes County Chapter of the African American Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

For more information, please visit www.aac-ncdp.org
Contact us at info@wilkesdemocrats.com

Wilkes Senior Democrats Meetings

Wilkes Senior Democrats will meet for lunch on

Wednesday, August 4th
11:30am
At Olive Garden

Everyone is responsible for your own lunch
Program TBD

Wilkes County Senior Democrats met in person for the FIRST time since the pandemic, Wednesday, June 2nd, at W Kerr Scott Dam & Reservoir (photos above). President Kenneth Foster conducted the meeting, Larry Pendry spoke about veterans' issues, and they celebrated Judith Porter's birthday with lunch, cake, and a boisterous rendition of "Happy Birthday!"

CALLING ON CANDIDATES
for
LOCAL ELECTIONS

Municipal Elections will be held for Wilkesboro and North Wilkesboro in November. Voter turnout for non-presidential years without national races is usually VERY low and we need every Democrat who lives in those two towns to come out and vote. But FIRST, we need great candidates.

While our town commissioner and mayoral seats are non-partisan, it's important that Democrats run in these positions, and it's vital that we support them.

In Wilkesboro, Democrat Russ Ferree is running for re-election, so there another is seat available (Nellie Archibald has changed her registration to 'unaffiliated' and is running for re-election.) This is not an election year for Wilkesboro mayor.

For North Wilkesboro, there are two commissioner seats and mayor up this election. Democrat Debbie Ferguson is not running for re-election after serving four terms. (Angela Day has changed her registration to 'unaffiliated' and is running for re-election.) Two Democrats are running for mayor: Mayor Robert Johnson is running for re-election, and Michael Cooper is also running for the same seat.

We urge Democrats to come forward and run. Since the offices are non-partisan, Democrats CAN actually get elected in this county and serve their community with the values that people ultimately appreciate. More importantly these elections usually have very low turnout - in the low hundreds - and are sometimes decided by a mere vote or two - because there are no run-offs.

If you're interested in politics and feel called to serve your community in a positive way, this is an excellent opportunity for you. These are all 4-year terms. The filing deadline is July 16th at noon.

Our own Mandy Brame Marxen was elected to another term as NC Democrats 5th Congressional District 3rd Vice Chair.

While honored, after so many years, she is very interested in training someone new to take over, and would love to train someone from Wilkes County who is younger. It's important rural counties like ours are in leadership for the 5th. If you're interested in getting involved at the district level, you will learn a great deal about the political process in NC.

Reach out to her: info@wilkesdemocrats.com

Postcards That Make A Difference

Studies show that when people receive handwritten postcards, they do vote at a higher rate than those that don't. We have received the 200 postcards for the Postcards to Swing States project. Our cards will go to North Carolina addresses only. This will involve writing a couple of sentences and addressing the cards. WCDP will cover the postage costs. We would like to have this project completed by July 4th. If you're interested, please reach out to us at info@wilkesdemocrats.com

Thank You for Your Part in Helping with
Help the Homeless Essentials Kits!

JOIN THE YOUNG DEMOCRATS

If you are a Democrat under age 36, help form the Wilkes County Young Democrats Chapter of the YDNC. We'd love to have your involvement!

Larry Pendry speaking at the Flag Day event on 6/14/2021 (with Mayor Robert Johnson in background)

Democrats Represent On Flag Day

Former Wilkes County Democratic Party Chair, Larry Pendry, spoke at the Flag Day event on June 14th. His words were powerful, and we'll post them soon on our website's blog. Stay tuned. The event was held in North Wilkesboro Elks Lodge - which also serves as the the North Wilkesboro precinct voting site on election days.

Be sure to mark your calendars for the upcoming Organizational Meetings

WE HAVE A NEW FACEBOOK GROUP:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wilkesdemocrats
** the old facebook page is no more**