Last week, Meredith Matthews, mayor of Arcata’s historic all-women City Council, declared she will support Kamala Harris as a delegate during the August 19-22 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

With a groundswell of public excitement and a majority of the party’s delegates at her back, the first female Vice President is well on her way to becoming the second woman chosen to lead a major party ticket. 

And, less than 100 days out from the November election, a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted last week showed Harris neck-and-neck with Trump (about 4 points closer than Biden was following the debate performance that shall not be named).

“She seems to have pumped new life and new interest into the race,” Matthews told the Outpost in a phone interview. “I like seeing the next generation stepping up and the excitement it’s generating.” 

“She’s a woman. I mean, come on,” she concluded on her support for Harris.

It’s easy to cast national elections as top-down political theater, but Matthews’ delegate status serves as a reminder of the reciprocity between levels of government. Many of the roughly 4,700 delegates who will cast votes at the convention in August are elected officials: mayors, councilmembers, commissioners and legislators on city, county and state levels. 

And the outcome of the delegates’ choice – the subsequent success or failure of the party’s candidate – will most definitely return to impact those levels through the policies the next president puts in place.

To make Matthews’ first time attending the Democratic National Convention all the more interesting, delegates have not come into play like they will this election season in a long time.

Rather than giving a ceremonial thumbs up to a candidate pre-checked through state primary elections, as has been the way since the party moved away from an open convention system in the wake of the chaotic 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention and subsequent Republican victory, Joe Biden’s decision to step aside forced delegates this year to support a candidate who was not on any state’s primary ballot.

(State processes vary – some hold caucuses instead of primaries – but in most cases, the winner of the state primary automatically takes the state’s delegates.)

Matthews was not surprised by the president’s withdrawal. 

“Biden seems to be a president that makes data-informed decisions,” she said, noting the downward trend in his polling over the last few weeks. “He definitely put the good of the nation ahead of personal gain.”

A lifelong Democrat who cast her first vote for Bill Clinton in 1992, Matthews also spoke to what she sees as the triumphs of Biden’s term, including his efforts to decrease student loan debt (his administration has canceled more than $144 billion worth), his victory with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (which appropriated $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending) and the administration’s measures to reduce health care costs.

“He led the nation at a time of tremendous uncertainty: through a pandemic, [a] time of huge polarization [and] politically and socially shifting powers worldwide,” Matthews said. “He is a 50-plus year public servant that has dedicated his life to this country, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for that.”

Matthews said that she was called to public service because of how lucky she feels to live where she does. A camping trip in the area 30 years ago sparked in her a desire to make Humboldt home, and in 2016 she made it happen. She moved to Arcata. And shortly thereafter, she got involved – joining the Economic Development Committee and volunteering with Arcata Main Street before her appointment to City Council in 2021.

“The most important things I’ve learned are to listen and show up,” Matthews said of her time in local government so far, adding that while the pace of work can seem “glacial” and the job can feel thankless at times, the results she has seen over her three years of service have been “pretty amazing.”

Matthews applied to be a delegate in January and found out in May that she was one of 496 selected to represent California at the 2024 convention.

“I just felt in my bones that this was probably going to be one of the most important elections in my lifetime, with the most at stake,” she said, recalling her decision to apply. “I just really wanted to be a part of it.”

Matthews made clear that her role as a delegate is separate from her role on Council. Stressing that city government is nonpartisan, she said she takes her mandate to serve the whole community, regardless of political persuasion, “super seriously.” 

But she also acknowledged the ways in which policy decisions made on national levels affect life in Arcata, pointing to an audit of Arcata’s spending for the fiscal year ending in 2023 which showed nearly $13.4 million in federal grants expenditures spanning diverse sectors like housing, transportation, environmental clean-up and emergency services. 

“So yeah, they [the feds] fund a lot,” Matthews said, adding that federal grants are especially critical for small cities with big dreams – “aspirational projects,” in her words – like Arcata.

“Do I think that under different leadership, we would’ve gotten quite so many grants for so many things?” she asked, answering: “No, I do not. And I’m super grateful to the Biden Administration for that.”

While the Harris campaign has played up the vice president’s work with the Biden Administration,  Trump’s presidency was marked by funding cuts and hold ups that impacted important pots of money for cities. And blueprints for a potential Trump term number two, including the 2024 Republican Party Platform and the Project 2025 policy document led by allies of the former president, foreshadow more cuts. 

While the former puts reining in “wasteful Government spending” front and center, Project 2025 goes much, much further than the vague bullet points of the GOP Platform. Using a clearly stated “carrot and stick” approach to federal funding, the 922-page manifesto outlines how local governments nationwide could be bent to conservative interests.

For example, Project 2025 proposes cutting federal aid to declared “Sanctuary” localities (Arcata is a Sanctuary City and Humboldt is a Sanctuary County) and requiring those applying for federal funding to share information on residents with federal law and immigration enforcement agencies. 

So, while Matthews’ trip to Chicago next month represents the grassroots aspect of party politics, what comes after November (and really, after January 20) will surely remind communities nationwide that localities’ successes or failures – the resources and abilities they have to implement their own visions – are heavily impacted by what’s happening above.

Speaking to the gravity in what she’s about to participate in, Matthews called serving as a delegate a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“It’s a moment in history, and I’m always going to be able to look back and say that I was there,” she said. “I think my kids are going to be proud because I was there, and I know that my parents are really proud that I’ll be there.”

Mayor Matthews will be updating her Facebook and Instagram accounts with convention content for those interested in following along with her journey to Chicago.