Charlotte mayor wins Democratic primary amid intense national scrutiny over murder on city's light rail

Incumbent candidate Vi Lyles won the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, securing more than 70% of the vote as her city faces national outrage over the fatal Aug. 22 stabbing of a young Ukrainian refugee on a light rail train, according to local reports. 

Lyles, who has served as mayor since 2017, defeated four challengers, according to NBC-affiliated WCNC Charlotte. Her closest rival, Brendan Maginnis, received just 12.19% of the vote, while the three remaining candidates — Jaraun "Gemini" Boyd, Tigress McDaniel, and Delter Guin — split the rest. More than 42,000 ballots were cast, with results pending canvassing. 

In November, Lyles will face Republican Terrie Donovan, a real estate agent who has centered her campaign on crime and public safety, and Libertarian Rob Yates, the outlet reported.

Donovan had already made crime a central theme before Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly killed 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on Aug. 22. She called the crime a “wake up call for all of us to demand better from our elected officials,” ABC News 11 reported. 

Zarutska’s death has thrust the city’s public safety record into the national spotlight. A video of the attack released Sept. 5 fueled outrage, and on Sept. 9, the U.S. Department of Justice announced federal charges against Brown, CatholicVote reported.

In a Sept. 9 video from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump criticized Democratic leaders in the city for soft-on-crime policies he said let “savage, bloodthirsty criminals” loose on city streets. He noted that 24 of the 25 most-dangerous US cities are run by Democratic mayors. 

As CatholicVote reported, Brown had been arrested and released 14 times before the Aug. 22 incident.

“In Charlotte, North Carolina,” Trump said, “we saw the results of these policies when a 23-year-old woman who came here from Ukraine met her bloody end on a public train.” 

Lyles responded to the murder in a Sept. 8 letter, in which she called the murder “a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates” and said the city needs a “solution to address repeat offenders.” 

While her statement outlined a plan to increase security on the city’s public transport system, her response drew criticism for being too slow. In a Facebook post Sept. 9, McDaniel, one of her Democratic challengers, said the mayor was a “day late and a dollar short.”