EMILYs List Endorses Vi Lyles for Reelection as Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Vi Lyles for reelection as mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina as part of the Madam Mayor program. EMILYs List President Laphonza Butler released the following statement: 

“As Republican anti-choice extremists have continued to chip away at abortion rights in North Carolina, it has never been more important to support the Democratic pro-choice women in executive office who will use their power to fight back. Vi Lyles has been a groundbreaker and a steadfast voice for reproductive freedom, and she has delivered results time and again for the people of Charlotte, leading the way on affordable housing, economic expansion, and crime reduction. EMILYs List has seen what she has accomplished for her city, and we know that with another term she will continue to ensure that the people of Charlotte have the resources and opportunity they need to thrive.”

Vi Lyles is Charlotte, North Carolina’s 59th mayor and the city’s first Black woman mayor in history. She is a former Charlotte budget director and assistant city manager, and was subsequently elected to serve two consecutive terms as a city councilor at-large. She was first elected mayor in 2017 with the full support of EMILYs List. As mayor, Lyles has led the effort to commit $150 million to affordable housing, helped to create over 27,000 new jobs, and focused on expanding transportation infrastructure and increasing community safety. Lyles is a graduate of both Queens University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In an effort to expand the work of electing and supporting local women leaders serving in executive office, EMILYs List launched Madam Mayor in the summer of 2023, a program to highlight and support women running for local executive office across the country. This program was created acknowledging that women, and particularly women of color, face more misinformation and disinformation when running for office, which hurts their candidacy and has a chilling effect on recruitment. At a time when local executives are facing more challenges than ever before, these attacks have proven especially prevalent for women running in these positions, and the Madam Mayor program will serve as a critical touchpoint for these Democratic pro-choice champions to receive the resources and support they need to serve their communities.

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, works to elect Democratic pro-choice women up and down the ballot and across the country with a goal of fighting for our rights and our communities. Our work is centered around a fundamental vision: Run. Win. Change the World. EMILYs List has raised $850 million in service to that vision and has helped Democratic women win competitive elections by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running one of the largest independent expenditure operations for Democrats, and turning out women voters to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country’s first woman as vice president, 175 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 20 governors, and over 1,500 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. Visit www.emilyslist.org for more information.