Nothing quite encapsulates Reeves Peeler’s Raleigh roots like running into his brother’s former high school band mate while knocking on doors for his city council campaign.
Peeler, a Broughton High and NC State grad, is a born and bred Raleighite who plans to live in the city for the rest of his life. That’s just one reason he’s running for one of Raleigh’s at-large city council seats this election season.
In-person canvassing has become a hallmark of Peeler’s campaigning efforts. Michael Altman, Peeler’s campaign manager and a second-year studying sociology at NC State, said they have been knocking on doors for nearly 15 weeks straight and reached over 15,000 voters. In an era that values in-person interaction less and less, Peeler appreciates the personal nature that knocking on doors entails.
“When you want to talk about an issue in the city that’s important to you, say it’s housing and transit and parks, the best ways to hear someone’s true feelings and opinion on it is to be looking them in the eye, face-to-face, and also in a place they feel comfortable, which is on their doorstep,” Peeler said.
Peeler has served as a member of Raleigh’s Planning Commission, which advises local officials on everything from zoning changes to community development, for the last year and a half, which he said made it clear how Raleigh’s city planning strategy could be improved.
While canvassing on Oct. 3, a retired couple answered Peeler’s knock. Through a brief conversation, the couple said they took issue with the city’s permitting process after their neighbors next door were allowed to add garages to their brand new houses, but they were not due to the age of their home. Peeler said this is an example of how the city prioritizes new developments.
“Often our permitting and zoning rules do not favor people who’ve lived here a long time,” Peeler said. “It favors the new developers who want to tear something down and build some big, fancy place, and that’s what he was getting at. So often, when people don’t even know the details or the background, they’ll have a take like that, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, you have experienced it correctly.’ They might not know why, but they’re usually correct.”
Peeler’s platform places an emphasis on public transit and pedestrian-friendly design. While Raleigh may seem like a city developed to its fullest potential, Peeler said there’s room to grow.
“I live three blocks from Moore Square, and there’s no sidewalks on my street,” Peeler said. “So in a lot of ways, we don’t have urban infrastructure in places that really need it. Now we have it in nice parts of town. In working class parts, we don’t have a lot. You go out to North Raleigh, even a mile past the beltline, in some places there’s no bus service at all. So a lot of parts of what you call ‘outside the beltline Raleigh’ don’t have any of this bikeable, pedestrian-friendly, bus-friendly infrastructure.”
In addition to a reverence for his hometown, Peeler values the nonpartisan aspect of Raleigh’s city council, which allows officials and voters alike to solely focus on such policies. While some candidates may choose to run under the name of a particular party, that affiliation does not show up on the ticket.
“The partisan nature of a swing state like North Carolina — Democrats versus Republicans in our two party system are just banging heads all the time,” Peeler said. “I think a lot of that is why we see no good legislation get passed for working class people, because it’s really a silly dichotomy of party politics. What’s nice about municipal politics where it’s nonpartisan is that it really takes that out of it. It’s more down to the issues.”
Peeler is openly endorsed by the NC chapter of Democratic Socialists of America and the NC State chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, so while he may not be running as a candidate for one party, he doesn’t mind embracing labels.
Although he’s always been a registered Democrat, Peeler said he generally stayed on the sidelines for much of his life. It was Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign that inspired him to become more politically active.
During that period, Peeler got involved with a DSA chapter to advocate for renters’ rights and affordable housing after experiencing trouble paying his own rent while he lived in California.
“I just saw that the politics of working class people really jived with what I turned out to be taught by my parents, what values I had, like everyone matters and people really deserve a good life, good pay, good benefits, good time off,” Peeler said. “I think that’s where socialist values really run important and true for me.”
Peeler said people don’t always notice that DSA backs him, but he stands by the endorsement proudly because he doesn’t believe the politics of working class people, such as advocating for labor unions and higher wages, belong to the left or right.
“I would take that same message to the most rural part of North Carolina, most right wing part of North Carolina,” Peeler said. “Everyone sees this as a problem — that corporations have too much power in America and labor has too little power.”
In addition to working on the Peeler campaign and being a student, Altman has his own history of political organizing.
Altman and Peeler met while Peeler was working at Down Home North Carolina, a nonprofit working to organize working-class people in rural communities, and Altman was aiding in the unionization efforts at Garner’s Amazon warehouse. Altman began working on Peeler’s campaign this spring and, after a shift in personnel, stepped up to serve as the campaign’s sole manager at just 20 years old.
“Reeves has been the best mentor for me,” Altman said. “I definitely have a lot of organizing instincts as is, and I had some of the experience, but Reeves is always there to give advice. He’s just a good person to learn from. I tell everybody I still have no idea what I’m doing, but it’s about doing it — that’s the biggest thing.”
This is the first year Raleigh city council elections have taken place during a presidential election year, so the pair expects a record turnout. But, that also means they have little idea of how many votes are needed to win. As Election Day inches closer, Peeler and Altman are both focused on maintaining the momentum of their campaigning efforts and finishing the race strong.
Ultimately, Peeler’s campaign comes down to making Raleigh be a city that works for everyone.
“Yes, we might have some councilors that are doing an okay job, and they’re nice people, but we can do better,” Peeler said. “We deserve better as a city, and working people in this city deserve the best. We’ve got to change the status quo, and having hundreds of thousands of voters see that isn’t easy. That’s the hurdle, but we think we can do it.”
Reeves Peeler, a candidate running for an at-large seat on Raleigh City Council in 2024, sits outside of Cup A Joe on Hillsborough Street on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. Peeler’s hope is to build a future where Raleigh is affordable, green, walkable, safe and a place where everyone can thrive.
