National leader speaks to record crowd at Henderson County Democratic Party convention as Councilwoman Melinda Lowrance announces 2026 run for office

dalton buchanan
Apr 27
4 min read

A record crowd of almost 200 turned out for the April 25 Henderson County Democratic Party convention, which featured a surprise campaign announcement and a rare visit from a national level Democratic Party leader.

“It’s really important for me to be here because I’m guessing you don’t have a lot of representation from the national party coming to visit,” Reyna Walters-Morgan said during her keynote address. Walters-Morgan is the newly elected Vice Chair for Civic Engagement and Voter Participation for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). She grew up in North Carolina and is an alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Howard University School of Law.

“For far too long the national party has ceded ground, assuming that rural voters are not our voters,” she said. “The new DNC leadership is absolutely committed to changing this, and to do that we have to show up.”

Earlier in the week, Walters-Morgan had taken part in a Democrat-sponsored town hall event in North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District, which is a Republican leaning area represented by Richard Hudson. Rep. Hudson recently discouraged other GOP lawmakers from holding in-person town halls due to backlash against government cuts and other GOP policies.

“That is unacceptable,” Walters-Morgan commented. “We cannot live in a democracy where we elect people, and they then believe they don’t have to answer for the decisions that they make.”

During her visit to North Carolina, Walters-Morgan also focused on lawsuits surrounding the NC Supreme Court Race, the only race in the country that has not been certified due to delays caused by the Republican challenger’s attempts to throw out 60,000 votes, including those of active duty service members. “Those voters did everything right. Justice Allison Riggs won, but her challenger is not seeking fairness, he’s seeking power. We can’t allow that to stand.”

Walters-Morgan said that while it will take more than one party or one organization to change the country’s slide toward right wing authoritarian policies, she is encouraged. “I am happy and excited to know that you all have been doing the work,” she told the crowd. “You went from an R30 (30 point Republican advantage) to R15. You were Number One in the state for shifting Blue. This is what we can do.”

In addition to improving voter turnout in the past year, Henderson County Democrats have also greatly increased the number of volunteers and participants in events such as the April 5 Resist-Insist-Persist rally against corruption and human rights violations.

Reflecting this trend, the 2025 convention had 185 attendees compared to 95 in 2024. This included 124 delegates from 28 precincts. In all, 33 precincts—roughly 90 percent—were represented.

Lowrance announces run for 2026, Blakely recalls casting first vote

Two other speakers—Fletcher Mayor Preston Blakely and Hendersonville Councilwoman Melinda Lowrance--shared personal stories about how they became involved in the work of democracy.

Lowrance, who was appointed to fulfill an incomplete term, explained how she first became an activist when she was a student at the former segregated Ninth Avenue School and saw the children of migrant families being taught in huts rather than being allowed in the classroom. “I made a promise at age 12 that I would always be a voice for the voiceless,” she said.

Lowrance also made the surprise announcement that she had decided to run for a seat on the council in 2026. She said she had not been intending to run, but when the city received a letter complaining about her attendance at the April 5 rally and her affiliation with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) she changed her mind. “I stand here today to tell you that I am running,” she said to applause.

Mayor Blakely recounted two moments from his life when he felt that democracy was real in a vividly tangible way. The first was in 2012 when he was an 18-year-old casting his very first vote for Barack Obama. “The second was in 2019 at age 25 when I stood in that voting booth and saw my own name on the ballot. I realized what democracy really meant, that anyone from any walk of life has a right not just to participate but to lead.”

He also spoke of witnessing the basic goodness of the people of Henderson County in the wake of Hurricane Helene. “In Henderson County, we know resilience. I’ve seen it firsthand in every volunteer knocking on doors and every neighbor working to rebuild after Helene. This is who we are. Recovery is going to be around $60 billion. That’s why it’s truly despicable that our congressman will not step up for things like an extension for FEMA reimbursement.”

Local government “is where the rubber meets the road,” Mayor Blakely said. “I believe in our elected officials in this room. Our leaders are strong, they persevere, and they do not try to undermine democracy.”