These are the three Democrats vying for the NC state treasurer’s office in 2020
Three Democrats are running in the March 3 primary for the chance to challenge state Treasurer Dale Folwell in November.
Folwell, 61, is unopposed in the Republican primary.
The three Democrats, all first-time candidates, are: Dimple Ajmera of Charlotte, Matt Leatherman of Raleigh and Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji of Durham. Ajmera or Chatterji would be the first Asian-American elected to statewide office.
The platforms of the Democratic candidates all include a focus on making changes to the $3 billion state employee health plan by expanding Medicaid and lowering health care costs. They also propose better management and investment of the state pension plan, known as N.C. Retirement Systems, the nation’s 10th largest public pension at a value of around $106 billion.
DIMPLE AJMERA
Ajmera, 33, is an at-large member of the Charlotte City Council serving a second term. Ajmera immigrated from India at 16 years old and is the first Asian-American woman to run for state treasurer and to hold elected office in Charlotte. As a council member, Ajmera has focused on environmental initiatives, affordable housing, gender equality and affordable health care.
“I’m championing affordable health care and health care access in all parts of our state,” she told the N&O. “Investing in our aging infrastructure and protecting taxpayers’ pocketbooks.”
Ajmera is a certified public accountant who worked for Deloitte and managed multimillion-dollar budgets for the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, a Fortune 100 financial services company.
Ajmera’s plan to support taxpayers includes negotiating with health care providers for lower costs for state employees and working with the State Employees Association of North Carolina. Ajmera said Folwell has “not managed our money well” and said she would prioritize maximizing the return on investment from the state pension plan.
As an advocate for the environment, she criticized state investments in the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant, which for decades discharged the chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River.
Campaign finance records show that she had $82,229 in cash on hand and $24,973 in campaign contributions as of Dec. 31. Her top donors include Charlotte and North Carolina business owners as well as scholars.
RONNIE CHATTERJI
Chatterji, 41, a tenured professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Sanford School of Public Policy, has a doctorate in economics from the University of California at Berkeley and was a senior economist the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2010 and 2011 under President Barack Obama.
The son of Indian immigrants, he has been a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, worked as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs and worked for Gov. Roy Cooper on two statewide commissions on economic policy.
“The great thing about this race is that the differences between me and Treasurer Folwell are not the typical partisan differences,” Chatterji said in an interview. “They’re really issues of economic policy and substance.”
As treasurer, Chatterji said he would “modernize” the state pension plan by making changes to economic policy and staffing for the investment division and the state health plan.
“Health care is the only industry left where we’re just paying for the things that get done but not the outcomes,” Chatterji said. “I think we can change that by paying focusing on value.”
He proposes making changes over time by expanding Medicaid and improving care quality. He heavily criticizes Folwell’s investment activity as being poorly managed, saying that his lack of investments haven’t followed healthy market conditions and have missed out on big returns for educators and state employees’ retirement funds.
He said the investment office needs a “numbers guy” and not a politician — he’s planning to restructure the investment staff to fill empty positions with economic experts with a “professional mindset, not a political mindset.”
According to NC Insider, Chatterji had around $389,000 in campaign funds on hand and $119,000 raised at the end of the year. He’s loaned his campaign $150,000 of his own funds.
His top donors include Pomerantz Law, an international investor rights firm, members of Duke University faculty, Charlotte Councilwoman Julie Eiselt and various economists from places such as the Federal Reserve.
MATT LEATHERMAN
Formerly a policy director for the most recent Democratic state treasurer, Janet Cowell, Leatherman, 38, sets his campaign apart from his Democratic rivals by being the only candidate to have worked in the treasurer’s office. As policy director, he oversaw work from within the treasurer’s office from 2014 to end of Cowell’s term.
“There’s trust that I can get the work done because I’ve been a part of it doing it before,” Leatherman told The News & Observer. “That’s really important in a primary (election) environment.”
Leatherman said if elected treasurer he would focus on public schools, access to health care, the environment and the economy. He criticized Folwell’s removal of preventative care access for state health plan members and said Folwell did not negotiate rates well for state employees’ health care.
His said Folwell has not provided enough financial assistance to the state’s infrastructure after two hurricanes. He said Folwell has been “bickering” with Gov. Roy Cooper and Transportation Secretary Jim Trogdon instead of visiting affected counties facing infrastructure issues.
He expressed concern over the treasurer’s decision not to invest billions of dollars of the state’s pension plan and preventing return on investment. He said this is making retirement less secure for educators and civil servants.
Leatherman said it’s easy to “confuse this job with a chief economist job” and that it is instead a job of a public servant who, in turn, hires the state’s chief economist, the state’s accountant and the rest of the team in office.
According to campaign finance reports as of Dec. 31, Leatherman had raised $57,492 and had $10,528 in cash on hand. His top contributors have come from investment advisers and members of Triangle-based companies.
EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the value of the state pension.
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 3:44 PM with the headline "These are the three Democrats vying for the NC state treasurer’s office in 2020."
