'We're not out of touch,' say Pitt County's Statehouse trio

Jordan Britton, Miles Pugh | GNP contributors

There’s a general sense across the country that elected officials are out of touch. But Pitt County’s trio of state lawmakers say that’s not them.

Nationally, a 2024 Pew Research Center study revealed that 85% of Americans believed elected officials don’t care about what they think.

Locally, though, that’s not the case. At least according to local politicians.

“Our job is to try to be available and go to as many community meetings, hear [voters’] concerns, hear problems,” says state Rep. Gloristine Brown. She represents District 8, which covers the top of Pitt County through about half of Greenville.

The Greenville News Project spent the Fall 2025 semester looking into the question of whether local elected officials are in touch with their constituents.

GNP found that Pitt County’s three voices in Raleigh say they’re very much in touch through social media platforms such as Facebook and X, by giving out their emails and phone numbers, and by attending public meetings.

“We are able to put information out more easily and cost-effective," says state Rep. Tim Reeder, who represents District 9 which covers parts of Greenville and Pitt County.

He says elected officials are busy people, but he still manages to “spend[s] a lot of time in the community.” He also serves as vice chair for Clinical Operations at East Carolina University’s Department of Medicine.

Reeder says he receives hundreds of emails each week, on average, and he gets invited to and attends many events such a ceremonies, clubs and fairs.

Brown says she's in touch. She goes into public meetings, campaign events, speeches in the NC House of Representatives, and other public appearances with the understanding that she might not have all the answers, she says. Her recent public appearances include an Oct 11. installation service for the first female pastor at St. James Free Will Baptist Church in Fountain.

Still, she knows that not everyone can reach out and not everyone's needs can be met.

Brown says she and her staff also keep track of who calls and emails with their concerns. GNP asked for the average number of calls and emails she gets weekly, but the request went unanswered.

State Sen. Kandie Smith, who represents District 5 covering Pitt and Edgecombe counties, says some officials are out of touch and some are not. The out-of-touch ones “get comfortable and they get lazy,” she says.

She says she attends public events like town hall meetings, uses virtual meetings for those who cannot attend or speak out in person. She also travels across the state to go to other officials’ town hall meetings.

For his part, Reeder attended the 2025 World Day of Remembrance in Greenville in November. It’s an event that the North Carolina State Highway Patrol stages across the state to honor young people killed in road accidents.

Reeder says officials try to be as active as they can on all social media, and he notes that voters who tend to be more active tend to be on the older platforms.

“People who vote are more on Facebook and X and not so much on TikTok and Instagram. That's changing, but right now, young folks … tend not to vote, so,” he says.

Pitt County’s voter base leans toward the older side. Over 43,000 of the county’s registered voters are aged 41-65, and about 22,000 are aged 18-25, according to Pitt County’s voter registration database.

The county’s primary election turnout has declined by 9,000 voters from 2016 to 2024, county record show.

Reeder has accounts on Facebook, where he appears to post frequently, and on X and Instagram. On Facebook, a recent post consists of a Veterans Day ceremony he attended Nov. 11 at Ayden Veteran's Memorial Park. His Instagram account appears to be a campaign account.

Smith also has Facebook, X and Instagrams accounts. Among her posts was a Nov. 18 announcement of a meeting to update constituents who were affected by Hurricane Helene. She made an Oct. 17 post that said the people’s voices matter.

GNP couldn’t find a verifiable Instagram or X account for Brown. However, she has a Facebook account where she posted a speech she delivered in the NC House on Oct 22 about new congressional voting maps. She also recently posted a resource for those affected by SNAP benefits being on hold during the federal government shutdown. It was accompanied a Spanish translation.

Still on social media, Smith, Brown and Reeder have few followers.

For instance, District 9 has an adult population of 609,669 as of 2024, according to the US Census Bureau. If Reeder's 795 Facebook followers are constituents in his district, they would account for barely one-tenth of 1 percent of the district’s population. His 1,040 X followers would account for about two-tenths of a percent.

It is much the same for the social media followers for Brown and Smith.

Pitt County’s representatives in the NC Statehouse alone can’t single-handedly change the country’s general belief of political unawareness, however. The public feels left out as a whole. Sixty-three percent of Americans say most candidates who run for office do it for money rather than to serve the public, a 2023 Pew Research Center study found.

Smith puts the focus on voters. “Less voter apathy, more voter action” she says. “If the person you vote for won't have a conversation with you, why vote for them?”

Reeder speaks of all the messages he gets from constituents. “We get hundreds of emails a week depending on what's going on, because in North Carolina, we have a part time legislature,” he says.

“So, when we're in session, we get hundreds a day. When we're not in session, then it does trickle down, but we get a lot of emails. I get phone calls as well. And then we have people who come by our office as well.”

As for what those emails are about, Reeder names Medicaid as the major topic now. “The other communication we get are what we call constituent issues,” he says. “That might be somebody who is having trouble accessing their health insurance and they're struggling with their insurance company.”

GNP contacted other organizations to get their view on whether elected officials are in touch with their constituents or not. The Heritage Foundation, the National Conference of State Legislatures and Center of Representative Government didn’t respond to GNP’s repeated requests for comments.

Britton and Pugh produced this story for the Fall 2025 course, In-Depth Reporting.