Raleigh City Council member Corey Branch to run for mayor. Who else might run?
Raleigh City Council member Corey Branch is running to be the city’s next mayor.
“I’m running because I care about the city and the community,” he said in an interview with The News & Observer. “I’m not running against a person. I’m running for Raleigh. So for me, that’s what’s important.
“You know the fact that I was raised here in Raleigh, that I continue to reach out and I’m rooted here, I think that’s one of our major issues in politics,” he said. “Sometimes we make it about personalities. And we need to make it more about how do we help people.”
Branch, 45, was first elected to the Raleigh City Council representing District C, or Southeast Raleigh, in 2015. He made his formal announcement on social media Thursday.
Now is the time to bring the “Raleigh culture back” while continuing to grow, he said.
“We’re not going to put a fence around the city,” he said. “So what we need to do is ensure that people who are born and raised here have opportunities to grow and develop and have a chance to get the jobs that are coming here.”
There’s a lack of civility now, and people feel a lack of connection with their local elected leaders, he said, noting that he was one of two City Council members who didn’t vote to disband the city’s Citizen Advisory Councils in 2020.
Getting bus service to underserved areas in southeast Raleigh, advocating for bus rapid transit and moving the Old Towne project, a 600-acre development, forward are accomplishments Branch said he’s proud of during his terms on the City Council.
If elected, he said he’d like to focus more on economic development, with an emphasis on trades and “opportunities for young people,” and getting a corporate headquarters to the city.
Branch has served as mayor pro tem, filling in if the mayor is absent, for four years, including under former Mayor Nancy McFarlane and Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin.
Branch agreed that he and Baldwin usually agree on the “whats” but have a “difference of opinions on the ‘hows.’”
“We have some maybe thought processes that are similar,” he said. “But I think our backgrounds and how we interact and how we respond to people are completely different. We can just look at meetings that I’ve run in her absence.”
He is an associate director managing a global network support team for Kyndryl. He and his wife, Chanda, have a 5-year-old daughter, Carleigh.
Election Day is on Nov. 5, 2024, and filing is set for July.
Will Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin run for re-election?
Branch is the second candidate to announce his plans to run for the mayoral seat, and the first of the eight-person City Council.
Delmonte Crawford, who describes himself as a civil rights activist, announced this summer he plans to run for the mayoral seat after deciding to no longer run for lieutenant governor
Baldwin will make a formal announcement about her intentions for re-election in the spring, she said.
“My intent, at this point, is to run again,” Baldwin said. “We’ve still got work to do. And we need leadership. I’ve led on issues from affordable housing to transit, and I’m finally seeing results. And I don’t want to see things go sideways.”
Baldwin is holding her first campaign event of the season on Nov. 9, where she said she plans to talk about what she hopes to achieve.
Both At-Large City Council members Stormie Forte and Jonathan Melton say they intend to seek a spot on the council but declined to say for which seat.
“I am planning to run citywide in 2024, and I am waiting until the spring to see who else is running and where my service to the city could be most helpful,” said Melton, who was elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2022
Forte is having conversations with her political team, she said.
“I am running for something,” said Forte, who was appointed in 2020 and elected in 2022. “Citywide. My team and I have had some conversations but we haven’t pinned it down specifically.”
Council member Mary Black, who represents District A or north Raleigh, declined to say whether she was seeking re-election but said she would not be seeking the mayoral seat.
Council member Jane Harrison, who represents District D or southwest Raleigh, said she intends to run for re-election.
Council member Christina Jones, who represents District E or northwest Raleigh, said she hasn’t ruled out a mayoral run in the future but, for now, she plans to run for re-election.
Council member Megan Patton, who represents District B or northeast Raleigh, said she wasn’t interested in running for mayor, but declined to say whether she would run for re-election. “I am focused on governance and still weighing the options on how to best serve Raleigh,” she said.
This story was originally published October 26, 2023 at 11:38 AM.
