Janet Cowell will be the next mayor of Raleigh.

Cowell, 56, won a five-way contest to succeed two-term Raleigh mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin, who did not seek re-election, receiving a preliminary 60.9 percent of the vote.

A former Raleigh city councilor, state senator, and state treasurer, Cowell most recently served as the president and CEO of the Dix Park Conservancy. She stepped down from her position at the Dix Park Conservancy on October 4 to focus full-time on her campaign.

With the early vote plus a few precincts reporting, Cowell defeated four other candidates in the race:

  • Terrance Ruth, a community activist and NC State professor who ran against Baldwin in 2022 and won 41 percent of the vote. Ruth received 10.9 percent of the vote in this race;
  • Paul Fitts, a conservative mortgage lender, who received 18.4 percent of the vote;
  • Eugene Myrick, an educator and community advocate, who received 6.31 percent of the vote;
  • James Shaughnessy IV, a William Peace University student, who received 3.2 percent of the vote.

Cowell led her opponents in fundraising throughout the race and had received endorsements from the Wake County Democratic Party and popular former mayors Charles Meeker and Nancy McFarlane.

District C Councilor Corey Branch had also declared his candidacy for mayor earlier this year but dropped out of the race on July 17. In a press conference that day, he said his constituents in District C urged him to remain in his current role representing Southeast Raleigh on the council.

Cowell campaigned on expanding city subsidies for affordable housing, raising first responders’ salaries to address staffing shortages, and growing the police department’s mental health-focused ACORNS unit.

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