Yes. The national Democratic party, from Biden to Buttigieg to Booker, is definitely on board with density + transit as a formula for success, so what explains the county party’s backwardness? Would it help to overthrow the county party leadership? To get someone senior at FTA/USDOT/HUD to stop by and congratulate Raleigh electeds on a job well done with BRT+TOD, while unsubtly reminding them that they need to get on board with the party line?
Raleigh’s growth seriously matters to the state and national Democratic party’s future, because Democrats win big in big metros but only split the vote in mid-size metros. I’ve seen versions of this point made by a few Beltway pundits, but here’s a Brookings article drawn from a book by David Damore, Robert Lang, and Karen Danielsen:
As we argue in Blue Metros, Red States, the outcomes in Arizona and Georgia are consistent with the emergence of a pan-metro-area identity anchored by a single large, dense, and more politically cohesive metro space. The same level of metro area cohesion does not exist in Florida or Texas (each with four metro areas with populations over 1 million), or North Carolina, where the state’s metro areas—Charlotte, Raleigh, and the Piedmont Triad—are splintered across a nearly 200-mile swath along I-85.