RALEIGH — A former council member in North Carolina's capital city will become its next mayor, as the second-place finisher in this week's election decided against seeking a runoff.
Mary-Ann Baldwin got the most votes in Tuesday's six-candidate race for Raleigh mayor. Unofficial results showed Charles Francis trailing Baldwin by 7 percentage points. Francis said in a written statement Friday that while there was no clear mandate for any candidate, the pathway to a runoff victory would have required the campaign to raise several hundred thousand dollars in just a few weeks.
Baldwin will succeed Nancy McFarlane, who has been mayor since 2011 and chose not to run this fall.
Francis lost to McFarlane in a mayoral runoff in 2017.
