Who Will Take On Tricia Cotham? Does It Even Matter?

Two novice Dems and one who's run before but lost (to Tricia Cotham, incidentally) are running now in the HD 105 primary to take on Tricia Cotham this fall: Nicole Sidman, Terry Lansdell, and Yolonda Holmes, all of whom I first profiled here last December 18, 2023, noting at the time that Sidman had high-level connections in the Party for fundraising (from when she ran Christy Clark's successful upset of Republican John Bradford in 2018). She has indeed raised the most money. According to the Charlotte Ledger, prominent local Democrats "seem to be rallying around Sidman," and the Charlotte Observer endorsed her. She's fairly active on Facebook and she's done at least some canvassing for support. Sidman is a lawyer and outreach director at Temple Beth El in Charlotte.

Yolonda Holmes 

N.C. House District 105 contains Matthews, Mint Hill, and parts of south Charlotte. Sidman's chief rival for the nomination appears to be Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools community engagement employee Yolonda Holmes. (The mainstream media spells her first name Yolanda, but it's Yolonda on the candidate's social media.)

Back last December I couldn't find a website or any social media presence for the third candidate in the primary, nonprofit executive Terry Lansdell, and still can't as of today.

The Democrats are hot to get revenge on Tricia Cotham for her treachery, but can any of these three rally the base and win the Unaffiliated?

Yolonda Holmes is quite active on Twitter (where Sidman isn't), likes to be called "Dr. Yo" ("on the GLOW with Dr. Yo!"), and is a "featured" and "targeted" primary candidate for Lillian's List of North Carolina. That gives one pause. So much for the "establishment" support Sidman supposedly enjoys. Why did Lillian's List endorse Yolonda over Nicole?

Holmes has also been endorsed by the Progressive Caucus of NC.

She told the audience at a candidate forum recently that her campaign strategy "is a secret." “Our campaign has been very diligent and strategic, and we have been very secretive in our strategy and will remain that as much,” Holmes said.

The last time we heard about high-level "secret strategies," Richard M. Nixon was president.

Update on the DemPrimary To Oust Tricia Cotham

 

Sidman, Holmes, and Lansdell

Previously, none of the three Democrats in the March primary in House District 105 had any campaign infrastructure or social media presence. Here's what I discover today.

Nicole Sidman

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554729969533
https://twitter.com/nicolefornc
https://www.nicolefornc.com/

Terry Lansdell

No website nor social media found

Yolonda Holmes

https://www.facebook.com/yholmesfornc
https://twitter.com/NcYolonda
https://www.yolondaholmes4nc.com/

Holmes (who seems to have settled how her name must be spelled, with two o's) has the best website, with plenty of platform issues. Holmes also has the most active Facebook and Twitter feeds. Very hard to tell -- impossible from this distance -- who's most active on the ground, knocking doors, making calls, activating the base.

Yolonda Holmes reported about $8,000 cash on hand to the State Board of Elections (SBOE) in May 2022, after she had lost the Democratic primary to now-incumbent Tricia Cotham (at the time, also a Democrat) -- likely leftover cash from that campaign. There's been no fundraising report since then.

Lansdell filed a disclosure report with the SBOE covering only three days in December, listed minimal expenses, and no fundraising as of yet.

Sidwell hasn't filed a Statement of Organization with the SBOE nor any disclosure reports. Strange.

The Democrats Vying To Take on Tricia Cotham

 

The Democrats in the primary for HD 105:
Nicole Sidman, Yolanda Holmes, and Terry Lansdell

Short story: There's no seasoned Democratic star running to take Cotham's purloined House seat away from her. But one of these three will have to emerge and catch fire in a big way. Because Cotham's new gerrymandered district leans Republican. Trump won it in 2020, but so did Roy Cooper.

They predict it'll be the most expensive race for a General Assembly seat in all of North Carolina. The uber-notorious Tricia Cotham will face one of these three Democrats come November, depending on the outcome of the March primary.

I'll be following this race avidly. So far, info on the three is currently rather sparse. As they crank up their campaigns -- i.e., raise money -- we'll see more of their personalities and their plans.

Yolanda Holmes

Yolanda Holmes was first to file, and her name will appear first on the March primary ballot. She spells the first name with two o's -- "Yolonda" -- on Twitter (an account that hasn't been active since May 2022), but everywhere else in the press and on the State Board of Elections site, she's "Yolanda," so I'm confused. The differences in spelling may account for her relative invisibility on-line. So far, I can't find active social media nor a website for her under either spelling.

Holmes ran before in the 2022 primary against Tricia Cotham, who was still a putative Democrat at the time. Holmes came in second to Cotham in a 4-way contest. Cotham, who was making a return to the House as a progressive in a very progressive district, got almost 48% of the vote to Holmes's 31%. (This race was in what was then HD 112, which has been very studiously gerrymandered to help Cotham in 2024.) 

This is what I could find out about Holmes in March of 2022:

Yolanda Holmes is elusive on social media. She has a Facebook page which provides a link to a website, which is locked. The Facebook page is singularly uninformative. Found on the Internet: "The Rev. Dr. Yolanda Holmes, who grew up in the Charleston public schools and is a retired Department of Defense employee, is employed as Family and Community Engagement Coordinator with the CMS Family and Community Engagement office. She is associate pastor of New St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Charlotte. She earned a BS degree at Voorhees College, an MS in criminology at Indiana State, another MA in management, then a Ph.D. from Capella University." She works for the Charlotte Meck school system. She's a member of the long-running Mecklenburg County Women’s Advisory Board, an official county-appointed office.

Terry Lansdell

Lansdell didn't file for the seat until Friday morning, sort of at the last minute. "He’s a member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission and executive director of BikeWalkNC" (Steve Harrison, WFAE). His Linked In page lists a long history of civic volunteerism with service on numerous boards and commissions invested in clean air, public transportation, and recreation.

When Lansdell was named executive director of BikeWalkNC in 2018, the org. itself published this profile:

In addition to his work with Clean Air Carolina, Terry has extensive experience with non-profits, including work with both Trips for Kids and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Terry’s work to advance sustainability is well known and was recognized by Sustain Charlotte in 2015 when he received their Outstanding Leader Award. His experience with large-scale event planning as well as grant writing will be invaluable to BikeWalk NC as we continue to grow as an organization. Terry’s background with bicycle advocacy is substantial, and his passion for both sustainable transportation and a cleaner environment made him the ideal person for the job. Terry is also an accomplished distance cyclist who has competed in four solo Race Across America events (RAAM), the Race Across the West on a fixed gear bicycle and holds the UMCA state record for North Carolina.

So far as I can discover, Lansdell has no social media nor a website (as of yet).

Nicole Sidman

Sidman beat Lansdell to filing but only by a day. According to Steve Harrison, "She hasn’t run for office before, though she ran Christy Clark’s successful 2018 state House race against Republican John Bradford. Originally from New York, she has been in Charlotte since 2017. She is the director of congregational life at Temple Beth El."

“I saw somebody who had promised her constituents one thing and then within a number of months completely flipped and it was not a decision she made without consequences,” Sidman said. “It was not just a political choice she made. By doing that she has really impacted people’s lives in so many ways.”

Sidman added: “I just felt like this was the opposite of what democracy is supposed to look like. You are supposed to be able to count on the people you voted for.”

Reporter Harrison: Sidman "does have connections, having hosted a fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein earlier this year. Will he respond in kind?"

No social media infrastructure for Sidman yet. As she's a veteran operative (the Christy Clark campaign in 2018), she'll surely roll out a whole panoply soon.

The Democratic Primary for HD112

 

A four-way Democratic contest developed during candidate filing for the new North Carolina House District 112, with some familiar faces, including one who's attempting rehabilitation following disgrace. The newly drawn Mecklenburg County district (a wedge out of far eastern Meck that abuts both Cabarrus and Union counties) leans heavily Democratic. There will be a Republican challenger for the Democratic winner of the primary, but Tony Long, a Mint Hill town councilman, ain't given good odds for winning. Winner of the primary liken takes the seat.

Tricia Cotham is probably the best known of the candidates. From being recognized as a young Teacher of the Year in 2001, to administrative work at one of the state's largest high schools, to being appointed in 2007 to an NC House seat at the age of 28 -- making her the youngest in the chamber -- she served a decade in the House learning public policy, especially as it impacts public education. In 2016 she opted not to run for reelection to the House and instead threw herself into a crowded primary against Alma Adams for the 12th CD. Adams had been elected in 2014 and won the 2016 primary against all comers.

Cotham comes from a political family. Her mother Pat Cotham is serving her fifth term as an at-large member of the Meck Board of County Commish. In 2008 Tricia married Jerry Meek, chair of the NC Democratic Party, one of the most successful party chairs we've seen in the last 30 years. Cotham and Meek had two sons. The couple is now divorced.

During her tenure in the NC House, she became well versed (according to her bio on the McGuireWoods Consulting website) "in education, healthcare, finance, regulatory reform, commerce, banking and judiciary matters. Ms. Cotham possesses experience working with leaders of trade associations, Fortune 500 companies and legislators in both parties." McGuireWoods hired her in 2017 as part of their state government relations practice. "Founded in 1998, McGuireWoods Consulting LLC is a full-service public affairs firm offering government relations, strategic communications & grassroots, and infrastructure and economic development services. McGuireWoods Consulting is a subsidiary of McGuireWoods LLP, a leading international law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers in 20 cities." Cotham is not a lawyer.

Rodney W. Moore, a Meck Democrat notorious for being indicted in 2019 on nine campaign finance-related felony counts -- filing falsified campaign reports between 2011 and 2015.  He pleaded guilty to one count and was sentenced to probation. Before all that scandal he had run for reelection in 2018 as something of a Democratic dog in the manger (he had been one of a handful of Democrats to vote for fracking), so his favor among the voters was already in tatters and he was soundly beaten by Nasif Majeed in the primary. In 2016 he and Tricia Cotham both tried to unseat Congresswoman Alma Adams (see above), but Cotham did much better in the vote count than he. Cotham took 21% of the vote to Moore's .8%.

Interestingly, Moore is in the same business as Cotham, providing government relations consulting services through his own firm, Moore Consulting Group Inc. "A dynamic firm specializing in professional government relations, policy development, business development and public relations. Access to decision makers and key executives at the local, state, and federal levels of government."

Yes, we savvy the boast, "access to decision makers."

Jay Holman (full name: Johnell A. Holman), a Charlotte builder and paralegal "who has worked multiple campaigns over the years but is making his own first bid for elected office" (WRAL). He has worked as a paralegal at Charlotte law offices but probably his biggest influence comes from his activism for the Charlotte Meck Black Leadership Caucus. He led their PAC which means he knew (and knows) the players in the Meck Democratic Party. He also lists on his Facebook page -- Executive Director of Legislative Advocacy and Action Agenda at National Action Network.

Yolonda Holmes has been elusive on social media. She has a Facebook page which provides a link to a website, which is locked. The Facebook page is singularly uninformative. Found on the Internet: "The Rev. Dr. Yolonda Holmes, who grew up in the Charleston public schools and is a retired Department of Defense employee, is employed as Family and Community Engagement Coordinator with the CMS Family and Community Engagement office. She is associate pastor of New St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Charlotte. She earned a BS degree at Voorhees College, an MS in criminology at Indiana State, another MA in management, then a Ph.D. from Capella University." She works for the Charlotte Meck school system. She's a member of the long-running Mecklenburg County Women’s Advisory Board, an official county-appointed office.