Endorsements matter in Durham.
The 9th Street Journal analyzed Durham County Board of Elections records for the past 10 years and found striking patterns. We found no candidate has won local elected office in the past decade without an endorsement from one of the city’s two longest-standing political action committees: the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and the People’s Alliance. And the People’s Alliance, which turns 50 this year, has become particularly influential in recent decades.
Since 2016, 85% of the alliance’s endorsed candidates have won elected office. In Board of Education races over the past 10 years, every winning candidate has been on the alliance slate.
The People’s Alliance is dedicated to advancing progressive values, and its supporters point to its important role in transforming Durham into one of North Carolina’s bluest cities. They describe its endorsement process as transparent and democratic. However, as the organization has grown, so have its critics, who claim the alliance’s open endorsement process makes it vulnerable to manipulation by other interest groups. Critics say this year’s process was heavily influenced by turnout from the Durham Association of Educators and Durham for All, which they claim skewed results.
Many voters take the green People’s Alliance endorsement sheets based on its trusted brand, but without knowledge of the group’s inner workings. So how does that endorsement process work, exactly?
‘Transformative moments in Durham’s history’
Compared to the rest of the state, Durham’s political landscape is significantly more influenced by PAC endorsements, said Duke professor Mac McCorkle.
“The endorsement process in Durham is unique and almost a throwback to the old days of machine politics,” said McCorkle. “It’s a function of low turnout, low information, and low amount of money… Endorsements are where people start.”
Fifty years ago, Durham’s political landscape looked far different.
“In the ‘70s and ‘80s, this was a very white-run, conservative, business-type community,” said Milo Pyne, a long-time People’s Alliance member and organizer.
Business interests and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, largely regarded as more moderate, were the dominant players in local politics, with the white liberal People’s Alliance and now-defunct Durham Voter’s Alliance as decisive swing endorsements. Friends of Durham, a more conservative group, came on the scene in the late 1980s.
People’s Alliance-endorsed candidates began to win more often in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“Compared to previous times, [Durham] started becoming more progressive,” Pyne said.
That progressive transformation is a point of pride for many long-time People’s Alliance members.
County Commissioner Wendy Jacobs first became involved with the alliance as a Duke undergraduate in the late 1970s. Over her 40-plus years of membership, she’s watched the group help save the historically Crest Street Community from urban renewal, rally around the first Durham Pride parade, and get Black candidates elected to City Council.
“There were all these very transformative moments in Durham’s history, and PA was very much a part of that,” said Jacobs. “The PA is part of what has made Durham, Durham. We’re considered a progressive beacon in the South and North Carolina.”
However, Durham’s new political environment created a new set of challenges, said long-time alliance member Tom Miller.
“We increasingly had to choose between candidates who had relatively equal claim to be liberal,” said Miller. “It became harder when we were choosing between us and us, as opposed to us and them.”
The People’s Alliance includes three parts — the PAC, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and the 501(c)(4) advocacy organization — and holds endorsement meetings for every primary and general election cycle.
It’s the endorsement meetings that the group is best known for, and which attract criticism from some quarters.
Campaigning for the endorsement
People may imagine Iowa-style caucuses, presidential debates, or a closed-door selection committee when they think of a People’s Alliance endorsement.
What actually happens is this: The alliance holds virtual endorsement meetings, and any qualified alliance member who shows up gets to vote. Interview committees present non-binding recommendations for endorsement. But the final endorsements reflect the votes of whoever shows up at that night’s meeting.
Votes can be cast by anyone who pays the $50 dues ($10 for students), joins by the advertised deadline 60 days in advance of the meeting, and registers separately for the meeting at least five days in advance. Those who miss that 60-day deadline can’t vote, but they can still speak at the endorsement meeting for or against a candidate by registering by the five-day deadline.
All attendees are instructed not to discuss what happens at the endorsement meetings.
Its wide-open approach to attendance is either the alliance’s strength or its weakness, depending upon who you ask.
To Brian Callaway, a former alliance member and City Council candidate, the process is a “popularity contest.”
Different Durham organizations and individual campaigns mobilize supporters to attend the endorsement meeting and speak on behalf of specific candidates. In Callaway’s experience, those members arrive with their minds already made up.
“It’s supposed to be kind of like a caucusing room where people pitch their candidate… and to try and sway people to vote for them,” said Callaway. “But the endorsement is a foregone conclusion.”
This year, groups such as the Durham Association of Educators and Durham for All had a big presence at the People’s Alliance endorsement meeting.
Miller agrees that various community groups and candidates gather their supporters for the group’s endorsement meeting.
“The PA is a big tent,” Miller said. “So there’s campaigning for the endorsement… but since everybody knows you can do it, then everybody should do it. And I can’t see anything that’s inherently unfair, because ultimately it’s the members who choose.”
Nana Asante-Smith defends the group’s one-person, one-vote approach. Asante-Smith has been a People’s Alliance PAC coordinator since 2017. She acknowledges that many Durham voters may not know that other organizations’ members participate in its endorsement process. The alliance doesn’t plan to change the process, though, she said.
“We are well aware that organizations organize and work to build coalitions and encourage participation of members in our process, in an effort to earn endorsement of PA PAC,” Asante-Smith said. “Robust organizational structures exist in Durham. There’s nothing nefarious or complicated about that.”
The endorsement meetings have been steadily growing in popularity. This January’s meeting had around 580 members, compared to about 230 members at the 2025 municipal election endorsement meeting and around 300 members at the 2024 primary endorsement meeting.
The meetings are the second step of the alliance’s two-tiered endorsement process.
First, committees of five to seven members interview candidates and decide whether to recommend a candidate to the general body. Separate committees with more specialized interviewers consider judicial and school board candidates.
An interview committee member presents the recommendations at the endorsement meeting. Members can ask questions of the committee before they speak for or against any candidate. At the most recent meeting, attendees had a maximum of 30 seconds each to speak.
After members finish speaking, votes are cast via Zoom poll. Meetings have been conducted by Zoom since the pandemic, said Asante-Smith.
“[The format] has allowed for greater accessibility, for example, in terms of transportation and childcare,” said Asante-Smith. “It’s also allowed for folks to feel more private and secure in casting their votes, and it’s also allowed us to, as a matter of practicality, host more people.”
Some attendees say the Zoom format can be more vulnerable to misinformation, though.
Cameron Wallace, a college student at Durham Tech, attended the most recent alliance endorsement meeting to speak in support of Congresswoman Valerie Foushee. Wallace said he was shocked by what he experienced.
“There were lots of unverified links in the chat right before voting, and misinformation able to spread unchecked,” said Wallace. “There were comments on her record on Israel that were fabricated and untrue.”
The Zoom chat runs during the entirety of the meeting, including when members are speaking. Callaway said the online format has encouraged more personal attacks on candidates and their supporters in the chat feature.
Asante-Smith said PAC coordinators, who moderate the chat, typically issue two warnings to anyone who uses hate speech or toxic language or demonstrates discriminatory or abusive behavior.
“We are in a difficult position, because we never want to feel as though we are engaging in any anti-democratic process, but we do believe an engaging and welcoming kind of space is paramount,” said Asante-Smith. “We have no problem kicking participants out of a meeting if they do not heed our warnings. We’ve done it, and we’ll continue to do it.”
The PAC coordinators issue warnings for unverified links, but the large number of chat participants makes this job difficult, Asante-Smith said. The alliance does not have a moderation policy for misinformation.
“We can’t catch it all. We don’t get the opportunity to fact-check in real time,” Asante-Smith said. “We encourage folks, as they become aware of misinformation or disinformation, to call that out, to hold folks accountable in a way that is respectful and honest.”
Wallace, a former Democratic party chair for a local precinct, used to watch people grab the People’s Alliance mailer and vote based on it.
“Now, I wouldn’t trust any of the PA endorsements in the election cycle,” said Wallace.
Asante-Smith couldn’t disagree more. She believes the People’s Alliance has earned the trust of the community over its many decades in local politics.
“Whether or not people are disgruntled about the results of our endorsement process, or what they believe to be unfair, has no bearing on the facts and reality of how we operate,” said Asante-Smith.
With primary elections just under a month away, the alliance is readying mailers and hiring poll greeters. Asante-Smith is proud of the work the volunteer-led organization does, with just one paid employee in its nonprofit.
“We stand by the integrity of our process, and we always will,” said Asante-Smith. “That does not mean we are beyond reproach, and it does not mean that we are not evolving and growing, but it means we are who we say we are, and we do what we say we’ll do.”
Above: A volunteer passes out People’s Alliance literature outside the Durham County Library polling site during the November 2024 election. Photo by Kulsoom Rizavi — The 9th Street Journal
Katelyn Cai
