Charlotte, North Carolina Mayor Viola “Vi” Lyles, 72, made history when she became the city’s first Black woman mayor in 2017. She has been re-elected three times by leading an administration focused on affordable housing, racial equity, infrastructure investment and community policing and the city’s population has flourished in her wake.
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Yet the heinous stabbing that left 23-year-old Ukrainian Iryna Zarutska dead at a rail stop has turned Lyles’ re-election campaign into a national talking point about public safety across the nation.
Republicans wasted no time politizing Zarutska’s death, attempting to connect the violent crime to the city’s Democratic leadership under Lyles.
Lyles has pledged to support community-based alternatives to prevent crime in place of over-policing and does not support the deployment of the National Guard to address crime. Following Zarutska’s death, Lyles also said that she would support strengthening public transit security.
“Over the past several weeks as our community has worked to understand this, what we know is that this was a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates,” Lyles wrote in a statement addressing public safety fears in Minneapolis. “Our police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released, which undermines our ability to protect our community and ensure safety.”
Terrie Donovan, Lyles’ Republican challenger, would become Charlotte’s first GOP mayor since Pat McCrory from 1999 to 2009. She has lived in the city since 2000 and has pounced on criticism of Lyles’ to position herself as an alternative candidate who wants to prioritize public safety above all.
“Public safety, no doubt about it,” said Donovan in a TV interview, seemingly dog-whistling that she would welcome a National Guard deployment to the city at Trump’s order. “We have got to increase funding to CMPD.”Lyles bested four challengers in the Democratic primary with 70.75% of the vote, opening the door for another term. Yet with the city’s Black population hoovering around 35% compared to a white population of around 40%, Black voters will certainly have a large say in whether Lyles deserves another term.
This is the fourth in an ongoing series where The Root goes beyond the headlines, digging deep into the most critical political campaigns of 2025.
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