Share this Post
City Council members will now serve four-year terms.
The election process for Raleigh City Council is facing a major change affecting how its members are elected—and how long they will hold their seats. Effective 2026, Council members will run for four-year terms—and, plot twist, the topic will not appear on the ballot this fall.
“If you put it on the ballot in a presidential year, it’s probably going to fail because it will be on the bottom and won’t get a lot of attention,” says Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin of the 5–2 council vote in May to double term lengths and stagger terms. “People say they support four-year terms and want more consistency and efficiency in government—I think this was the right way to do it.”
“People say they support four-year terms and want more consistency and efficiency in government. I think this was the right way to do it.”
—Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin
Everybody elected this November is serving a two-year term that will end in December 2026. Mayor, one at-large seat, and Districts A and B will run for four-year terms in 2026. The other at-large seat and districts C, D and E will run for two years in 2026 and run again in 2028 for four years, creating staggered four-year terms.
Raleigh’s transitioning model will join a handful of other NC cities such as Asheville, Durham and Greensboro—while also leaning into a nonpartisan primary process that would narrow the field to two candidates per open seat.
“We had started this process earlier—a task force made these recommendations,” says Baldwin. “But nothing happened, and I think the fact we started moving on this was very positive. There’s a lot of support for four-year terms, and being staggered allows people a voice—if they don’t like the way things are moving, they can send a message.”
What’s not happening? While adding three seats to the board was another hot-button topic during the most recent Council meeting—a motion initially pitched by council member Megan Patton—city leaders decided to table the expansion for now. Patton acknowledged, “It isn’t the right time” and cited lack of support as reasons to take the motion off the table for the time being. Ultimately, looks like it all boils down to more reasons to rock the vote come November.
Related Articles
Share this Post
Comments
Too bad you didn’t reference anybody except MaryAnn Baldwin about four year terms. The city did two surveys, the second a statistically-valid one by a private company. Both surveys said that more than 60% of the respondents preferred 2-year terms. So 40% must be a lot, in Baldwin’s opinion.
Also several of the Raleigh City Council Members promised that they would 4-year terms on the ballot. I guess they changed their mind when they realized the ballot measure wouldn’t pass. All the Raleigh residents can do now is vote out those council members that voted for 4-year term. And be sure not to trust Raleigh magazine for fair reporting.
Mayor Baldwin complaining that a referendum on 4-year terms might fail because it would be at the end of the ballot and not get a lot of attention is the height of hypocrisy. It is Baldwin, Melton, Forte and Branch who are directly responsible for moving city elections from being the ONLY elections on the ballot to having to compete against state and federal elections for attention. A ballot referendum would appear right after the City Council races on the ballot. The location they all wanted to move the elections to.