Oh goodie, Terrence Ruth registered to run for mayor again at the last moment.
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The candidate filing period for Raleigh City Council is closed up. Final list of candidates with incumbents noted.
Mayor:
Janet Cowell
Paul Fitts
Eugene Myrick
Terrance Ruth
James Shaughnessy IV
At-Large (2 seats up for election)
Jonathan Melton - Incumbent
Stormie Forte - Incumbent
James Bledsoe
Josh Bradley
Katie Pate
Reeves Peeler
Robert Steele
DIST A
Mary Black - Incumbent
Whitney Hill
Mitchell Silver
DIST B
Megan Patton - Incumbent
Jennifer McCollum
DIST C
Corey Branch - Incumbent
DaQuanta Copeland
Tomara Thomasa Decosta
Daniel Lamar Grant-King
Jared Ollison
Tolulope Omokaiye
Portia Rochelle
DIST D
Jane Harrison - Incumbent unopposed
DIST E
Christina Jones - Incumbent
John Cerqueira
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Sad. No candidate should run unopposed.
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Given this covers Glenwood South and a rather large area of Raleigh, I’m disappointed there aren’t options.
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Is the well just dry in Raleigh? I’m amazed that nobody gave Abe Jones a challenge in the NCGA given that he’s not done much, especially vis a vis Yvonne Lewis Holley after she left to run a botched campaign she blew to Mark Robinson.
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District 38 is heavily Democratic, Jones can win that seat as long as he feels like doing the job.
He won in 2020 (when a GOP candidate last ran) by about 60 points.
If anyone here would like advice on primarying Abe Jones or Dan Blue, please Venmo me $5k for a strategy with 100% guaranteed results.
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Well this is a hoot: a poll about Raleigh City Council conducted by Livable Raleigh getting media traction. 
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Maybe it’s totally legit, but what are the chances CBS17 - or any other local news org that has referenced a Livable Raleigh poll in any of their articles - actually verified how the poll was run, the population of people called, etc.? The CBS article doesn’t even mention the total number of people the poll was administered to.
Just vaguely referencing some poll as a referendum on confidence in Raleigh’s city council and any upcoming changes without any substantiating details seems dangerous from a journalism-perspective.
Edit: In looking at Livable Raleigh’s press release, the poll was administered by “Public Policy Polling”. It’s based in Raleigh and was founded by “Dean Debnam”. In Googling that name, it shows he was a driving force behind the “Drunk Town” campaign in 2015. 
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It was probably just some website survey, If I had to guess.
Well nobody asked me so this poll was rigged
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CBS 17 didn’t even bother to get a comment from any group other than LR.
I’ve noticed more pro-urban groups like Raleigh Forward and WakeUp Wake has been a bit quiet lately. They were great at providing a lot of counter-arguments to LR doing the TOD debate, but I haven’t heard much from either since then, except occasional social media blurbs. I hope that now that the filing period is over, they become more vocal to help provide more balance.
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PPP itself is a legit polling firm from what I can tell and in fact I received the invite for and completed the survey. I could tell the poll had an “angle” though (and weirdly there were no questions about public transportation at all). That said, when you hire a polling firm I think you decide what questions to ask and of course that determines the results of the polls. Also, I suppose they could have blasted the survey to their mailing list.
Agreed. The polling firm is legitimate, but the CBS article refers to it as a “citywide poll” and then doesn’t even note the number of people that were surveyed. They just listed a bunch of percentages. Feels pretty on brand with orgs like CBS17, WRAL, etc. though.
The founder of the polling company they used having seemingly aligned interests sounds…convenient. Would be interested to see what the questions were in this poll were and how they were worded/composed.
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This is complete bs and lazy journalism trying to sell something that isn’t real to readers who agree with the narrative.
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The survey questions and more information is here.
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@annamjohnson , I’d be curious to get your input on how something like this works within the media biz if you know. An org like LR does a survey, and do they then shop the results around to different news orgs and hope someone picks it up? Would they have a connection with a sympathetic producer at ABC11 or something? Or is the news org just happy to take the results and make some click-baity headlines with it?
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I wouldn’t be able to speak to how things work or are decided at other newsrooms/organizations. I got the information in a press release sent out by Livable Raleigh. That’s a very common outreach method used by a lot of organizations. I’m on their list because I cover the city of Raleigh and I’ve interviewed several folks over at Livable Raleigh so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have relationships with other media folks too who cover the city.
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60% said good or fair reflecting on city council performance. I don’t see that as negative at all. I wouldn’t expect many people to say “excellent”. Poor only accounted for 19% and “not sure” is 15%.
In my opinion, question 11 and it’s results discredit this poll. The fact 74% of respondents even remember what CACs are makes me believe this poll was focused and bias. I’d have liked to see a question leading up to that if the subject knew what a CAC is and if they ever attended. I bet 90% of the 74% 
never even attended a meeting.
Also, a lot of these questions are about Raleigh’s growth, like city council or anyone can slow that down. We can only be more responsible about accommodating it to reduce sprawl.
Q20 is a bit surprising with 46% Democrat and only 18% Republican with Independents coming in 2nd at 35%.
Lastly, Q24, 100% of respondents knew what district they’re in? I find this hard to believe.
My 2 cents, or less.
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Question 7 also seems odd:
Raleigh’s growth is destroying neighborhoods and forcing large numbers of people to relocate outside of Raleigh.
These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. The thing that’s forcing people to relocate outside of Raleigh is, typically, price. Livable Raleigh says that “destroying neighborhoods” is adding density. Which, coincidentally, makes it more affordable for those people to live in Raleigh and not have to leave.
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