Asheville Council Members Skipping Pledge Sparks Outrage, Resignation Calls

Video footage of Asheville City Council members Kim Roney and Sheneika Smith declining to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance at the Feb. 13 and Feb. 27, 2024 meetings has exploded into a national campaign to push Roney out of the 2026 mayoral race, a contest that will determine who oversees an estimated $225 million in Hurricane Helene recovery funds.

National conservative commentators amplified the footage after Roney announced her second mayoral bid on September 1, 2025. Conservative Facebook personality David Harris Jr. shared a post framing Roney as someone who "refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance" and linked it to her mayoral announcement. The Blue Ridge Times warned the race "could be the year that a radical socialist like Roney secures the mayorship of Asheville," and Pravda USA picked up the story as well. The national pile-on follows a campaign that local conservative activist Jim Fulton of First Tuesday Conservatives first waged in October 2022, when he publicly raised concerns about Roney's conduct. A petition calling for her removal from the city's Public Safety Committee gathered 299 signatures. Fulton called both members' decisions "disgusting" and said "Asheville voters should decide" with their votes whether the behavior is acceptable.

What the outrage has largely omitted: under Asheville City Council rules, reciting the Pledge is optional, not mandatory, for any member. In a written statement to the Asheville Watchdog, Roney explained that she uses the moment for "a hopeful prayer: for wisdom, for peace, and for the liberty and justice for all that isn't yet realized in our United States of America." Smith told the Watchdog she questions pledging allegiance to a "man construct" that "can be manipulated by man." Neither responded to comment requests from Biltmore Beacon editor Joe Maxwell, who first broke the story into viral circulation. Mayor Esther Manheimer, filmed reciting the Pledge alongside Vice Mayor Sandra Kilgore in the same footage, told the Beacon: "In Asheville, folks are very comfortable if you choose not to say the Pledge." Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper assessed the controversy as unlikely to carry "serious political ramifications" in Asheville's political environment.

Not everyone in the local race reads it that way. Council candidate Kevan Frazier told the Beacon: "For me, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is a personal affirmation of our democracy and a way for me to honor my father and grandfather and all of the women and men who have served and are serving in the armed forces."

The controversy arrives as the November 3 general election carries unusually high stakes for Asheville governance. Roney, 45, a music teacher and piano technician who grew up in Asheville and graduated from UNC Asheville, has served on the City Council since 2020 and has centered her campaign on Helene recovery oversight, housing affordability, and public safety reform. She registered as a Democrat for the 2026 race, having previously been unaffiliated, and carries an endorsement from the Asheville Democratic Socialists of America. If elected, she would become the first known openly queer mayor of Asheville, having come out after her 2020 council win.

Her opponent is the same incumbent she lost to before. Manheimer, 54, announced her re-election bid on August 20, 2025, seeking a fourth term. She has served on the council since 2009 and as mayor since 2013, and defeated Roney in the 2022 general election 53.43% to 45.52%. The nonpartisan general election is November 3, 2026.

Whether the national pledge backlash reshapes that margin or dissolves against the weight of local recovery concerns is the central question heading into November. The $225 million in Helene funds Roney has made a campaign cornerstone has not appeared in any of the national coverage that followed her announcement.