Chapel Hill mayor Jess Anderson is set to cruise, unopposed, to reelection.
But that doesn’t mean her second term will be any easier as President Trump’s cuts at the federal level continue to shift a greater burden to local government.
“Social service needs and the needs for folks who are struggling are just going to go up,” Anderson told INDY last month after a particularly contentious council budget vote. “We’re left holding the bag.”
After a slow start to the filing period (candidates wisely avoided the first few days right after historic rainfall and floods hit Orange County), six candidates ultimately filed to compete for four at-large council seats in November.
Incumbents Camille Berry and Paris Miller-Foushee, both first elected in 2021, are seeking reelection, while council members Adam Searing and Karen Stegman both announced last month that they would not. Stegman has already vacated her seat to move to Carrboro.
The race will feature two more familiar names: Jon Mitchell and Erik Valera, who both ran for town council in 2023.
In that election, Mitchell ended up at the bottom of the pack of serious contenders, about 1,000 votes short of winning a seat, while Valera finished about 500 short of a seat. Both Mitchell and Valera are currently on the planning commission, a council-appointed body that is often a stepping stone for those with council ambitions.
Wes McMahon and Louie Rivers III are the only newcomers to electoral politics. McMahon is also on the planning commission, while Rivers is an EPA researcher and former NC State professor (because it’s Chapel Hill, though, Rivers wouldn’t even be the only former EPA official on the council after Melissa McCullough’s 2023 victory).
Endorsements will be key in the ultra-blue small town’s election, especially because the four challengers will need to distinguish themselves from a well-credentialed, progressive pack.
Many of them have previously said some pretty nice things about each other—Rivers, McMahon, and Miller-Foushee for instance, all endorsed now-opponent Mitchell in 2023 ( “The real Town Council election is the friends we made along the way,” Mitchell captioned a smiling selfie on Facebook with Miller-Foushee after his loss).
The most notable development in this election so far is perhaps that there aren’t more candidates.
In 2023, 10 candidates ran for four seats. Four of those candidates ran on a slate backed by Chapel Hill for a Livable Town (CHALT), an advocacy group with a mixed electoral record that is conspicuously absent from the 2025 race so far.
Last election, amid candidate accusations around doxxing and dark money, the mayoral race set a fundraising record and drove the highest turnout in recent years.
The absence of CHALT makes this year’s election seem unlikely to beat those numbers.
Check out our story on who’s running in other Orange County races here.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].