Early endorsements for Davis came from progressive Democrats, legal scholars, and human rights activists. Chris Lu, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor under the Obama Administration pledged support, as did Fletcher, North Carolina-based civil rights attorney Frank Goldsmith, Harvard Law School professor and Constitutional Law expert Laurence Tribe, and Eugene R. Fidell, the Florence Rogatz Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. Davis was also endorsed by VoteVets.org, which represents 700,000 progressive veterans; the Sierra Club; Equality NC and the AFL-CIO Western North Carolina Central Labor Council.