NC Democrats hire Sadjadi as new executive director

After a nearly year-long job search, the North Carolina Democratic Party has installed the person charged with implementing its elections strategy for 2024 and beyond.

The state party hired Kian Sadjadi to be its new executive director. Sadjadi, 36, most recently worked as a state program director for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Prior to joining the trade union group earlier this year, Sadjadi worked almost two years as national regional organizing director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

With the DCCC, Sadjadi managed organizing staff for multiple western and midwestern states.

“Focusing on rational battleground districts was a great opportunity to develop really tailored programs that match the district,” Sadjadi said in an interview with WRAL on Wednesday, his first day on the job.

In North Carolina, Sadjadi aims to help the party “focus on the rural communities, communities of color, youth engagement, and really making sure that we’re mobilizing every single voter across the state and making sure that people have the tools and the skill set needed to organize in their own communities.”

In 2021, he worked as an organizing director for Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. In 2019 and 2020, he helped Joe Biden win Nevada as the state party’s Regional Organizing Director.

Executive directors typically oversee daily operations of political party organizations. They are the top staffers and answer to the party’s officers, who are elected by delegates. Sadjadi becomes the first permanent director since December, when Meredith Cuomo left the position to serve an advisory role. She had worked as executive director since 2019.

Cuomo was the first leader to depart during what has been a year-long shake-up in the party organization.

After failing to win any statewide races in North Carolina’s midterm elections, party members in February ousted many of their top officers and elected 25-year-old Anderson Clayton as chair. She beat out incumbent chair Bobbie Richardson, who sought a second term after being elected in 2021 and was endorsed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Kian to Goodwin House,” Clayton said in a statement Wednesday, referencing the party’s headquarters in Raleigh.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher in this next election and I know Kian’s experience as an organizer and his track record of winning competitive districts is exactly what North Carolina needs,” she said.