Local Dems to offermeet and greetwith candidates

With the 2024 election just a few weeks away, members of the local Democratic Party are looking to educate residents about candidates on this year’s ballot. Their reason — to connect citizens of Sampson County with those looking to represent them so residents don’t blindly cast their votes on faces they’ve never seen.

“Actually, we just came up with this idea thinking about when we, as people, go to vote,” noted Brenda Cromartie, Democratic Women’s President. “Most of the time, we have never really seen the candidates.”

To change that perception, Sampson’s Democratic Party will host a “Meet and Greet” this Friday to give any in the community interested in a chance to, as Cromartie phrased it, put a face to a name.

The event will be from 6 to 9 p.m. at Southern Ambiance, 710A SE Blvd. in Clinton. Cromartie said the event will be broken into sessions.

“So they’re (the candidates) going to get a chance to actually give a little brief three to five minutes speech, each one of them, to introduce themselves,” she said. “Then I’m going to let them sit down at one of the vacant seats that will be open at each table where all the folks will be at. The candidates will be at each table for 10 minutes and, during that time, those in attendance will get a chance to ask any question they want to ask of that candidate.

“We’ll let them rotate to another table after that. We will do that between that 6 to 9 p.m. window,” she added starting to chuckle. “That’s the plan, at least, but I’m just thinking some of them may take about 45 minutes to an hour for them do that little three to five minute introductions.”

Interaction is the goal of the event, Cromartie said.

“SoI, was at a convention one weekend and I happened to meet a lot of the candidates,” she said. “After that, I just thought that it would be good to ask them to come to Sampson County so we would be able to know the faces we would be voting for when we look at the ballot. So this was the first thing my executive committee came up with that they wanted to do.

”Of course, for those that come, we’ll have a little light refreshments and some kind of hor’derves or something for people.”

Candidate who have confirmed they will be attending include Josh Harrell who is running for NC House District 22, Lethia Lee, county commissioner for District 4, and Tanya White Anderson for Senate District 12.

“The candidates that are going to be there are ones Sampson County residents can actually vote for, and we’ve actually got three candidates running that are Sampsonian’s. So that’s the thing we’re trying to promote this week, it is absolutely to get our Sampson County residents, knowledgeable, of the people they’re going to have a chance to vote for — it’s about putting the face with the name.”