Last November, Ben Clapsaddle unseated 24-year incumbent Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones, receiving over 70% of the vote. He ran on a platform of sustainable growth, fiscal responsibility, social inclusivity, and community engagement. Under state law, the mayoralty is largely symbolic, with the mayor all but limited to presiding over meetings, issuing proclamations, and casting the occasional tie-breaking vote. But there is one mayoral power the North Carolina General Assembly cannot take away: the bully pulpit. And Clapsaddle intends to use it. At his inauguralState of the Town Address last month, he devoted particular concern to food insecurity and veterans’ issues.
Clapsaddle’s victory marks a sea change in this town. His strongest precinct was 19-09, which comprises the town’s rapidly expanding eastern frontier. Oddly enough, this was the same part of town where Donald Trump performed best in 2024. But unlike Trump, Clapsaddle is a Democrat—the first in decades to lead Wake Forest.
Despite the town’s growing diversity and professed ideals, there is an abiding conservatism about the place—its elegant homes, its gnarled oaks. It is Wake Forest, after all, that birthed prominent segregationist I. Beverly Lake Sr. The Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which maintains influence over town affairs, has inculcated leaders such as megachurch pastor Mark Harris, who now sits in Congress on a solidly MAGA basis.Ventilation tycoon and free-market ideologue Robert Luddy lives in Wake Forest and operates several places of learning throughout the Triangle. The Human Rights Campaign calls one of his schools, Thales Academy, “horribly anti-LGBTQ.” Thales’ Wake Forest campus is situated in the labyrinthine club community ominously named Heritage…