With $100K raised, real estate broker, business owner launches Lexington mayor campaign
Raquel Carter believes Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton is holding the city back. That’s why she’s hopes to unseat the two-term incumbent this year.
Carter officially launched her campaign Monday. She is one of six people to challenge Linda Gorton in the mayoral primary. She is coming into 2026 with more than $100,000 raised, according to a December report with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.
“I believe Lexington can be the city that embraces our people, our potential and real progress. But for that, we need leadership that reflects the future, not the past,” Carter said to a crowded room of supporters at Mirror Twin Brewing as she launched her 2026 campaign for the city’s highest office.
The two candidates with the most votes on May 19 will advance to the November general election.
Gorton has handily won her two previous elections, earning 63% of the general election vote in 2018 and 71% in 2022. She is seeking a third and final term in office.
Carter is the CEO of Guide Realty, a company that specializes in residential real estate with offices in Lexington and Louisville. She said she’s led the company, founded by her mother in 2008, into a firm that has helped thousands of families find affordable housing.
She was recently the chair of the city’s Board of Adjustment, a body that oversees certain planning decisions and grants permits for unhosted short-term rentals.
Chad Walker, who owns much of the property along Lexington’s bustling National Avenue corridor, said Tuesday her leadership on the Board of Adjustment helped earn his support for her candidacy.
“There was a lot of people that came in that room that would be angry, they would be upset. And Mrs. Carter had an impeccable ability to hear their concerns, but to also make a decision,” Walker said. “We need that for Lexington.”
Carter also worked with Lexington for Everyone, a lobbying group, to successfully pressure the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council to expand the city’s urban service boundary in 2023. It was the first time in nearly 30 years the boundary had been expanded.
“The urban service boundary had forced our city into an ‘either-or’ mentality, pitting smart growth against beautiful farmland, inflating land costs and limiting housing options,” Carter said.
“The old establishment may have been okay with this, but I was not.”
Gorton, who often supports agricultural interests, was openly opposed to the expansion of the boundary.
Real estate agents and developers often clash with agricultural and urbanist advocacy groups around land-use issues such as the urban service boundary. Lexington for Everyone sought a boundary expansion of 5,000 acres to add more land to develop homes and commercial properties — land that’s often hard to find in Lexington’s urban core.
Carter says her background in real estate is an asset that voters should trust rather than be skeptical of, especially when it comes to addressing Lexington’s rapidly rising housing costs.
“(Some people) say, ‘Oh, she just wants more housing because that’s her business.’ But if your main problem is housing, then you need an expert in the industry,” Carter told the Herald-Leader. “You need someone who knows how to get housing on the market.”
Lexington’s housing costs are sure to be a top issue in this year’s local elections. A 2024 study from EHI Consultants showed Lexington rents rose 47% from 2019 to 2024. The average home sale price increased 60% over that same time period. About 54% of tenants are spending more than a third of their income on rent.
Carter said Gorton has not treated Lexington’s housing crisis as a true crisis.
“We are over 22,000 housing units behind right now. We cannot celebrate 300 new units a year,” Carter said.
Gorton highlighted an addition of 231 new housing units being constructed, with support from the city’s affordable housing fund, in her recent State of the City-County Address.
“It’s just not acceptable that half of the people that work in Lexington live outside of Lexington. It’s not acceptable that when our kids graduate from college or go to start a new family that they cannot afford to buy a house,” Carter said.
Carter said Gorton has also failed to support small businesses, collaborate with Fayette County Public Schools and improve the daily functions of government.
“We need a mayor who sees her legacy as investing our hard-earned tax dollars into the people and into our most basic services … not a mayor whose legacy is spending tens of millions of dollars on a new city hall that no one wants and no one’s asking for.”
Gorton is often lauded for steady services and a reliable competency stemming from her many years of service as a council member, vice mayor and mayor.
Carter says Lexington is ready for more.
“We need a mayor who embraces progress, lifts up future generations and has a vision for what our city can be. The idea that Lexington is limited to an ‘either-or’ mentality ends today.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2026 at 9:13 AM.
