# Ask Lex · @foxystvtime · mayoral candidate raquel  
**Published:** 2026-04-23T22:30:51.000Z  
**Source:** [LexBot 24/7 Livestream](https://www.youtube.com/@TheLexingtonTimes/live)  
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**Canonical:** https://feeds.lexingtonky.news/article/ask-lex-listener-20260423t223051z-foxystvtime-mayoral-candidate-raquel

Good question from @FoxysTVTime on YouTube asking about mayoral candidate Raquel Carter's background. I've been hearing her name quite a bit lately, especially with the fundraising numbers, but what's her story?

Raquel Carter is a longtime Lexingtonian who went to Fayette County Public Schools and Eastern Kentucky University, and she's spent her career building up her real estate business. She's the C-E-O and principal broker of Guide Realty, which she started with her late mother Phyllis Alexander back in two thousand eight.

So she comes from the business side of things rather than traditional politics?

Exactly, though she's had significant civic involvement. She currently chairs the city's planning board and has served on the Kentucky Real Estate Commission, the Lexington Community Land Trust Development Committee, and the Bluegrass Realtors Government Affairs Committee. She was part of the Lexington for Everyone group that successfully pushed for that controversial urban service boundary expansion in twenty twenty-three.

That's the one that passed ten to three on the council, right?

That's it. It was the first expansion since nineteen ninety-six and involved over twenty-seven hundred acres. If she wins, she'd be the first Black woman to serve as Lexington's mayor. Her campaign has already raised over one hundred thousand dollars, which puts her ahead of the other challengers in fundraising so far.

Housing seems to be her main focus from what I've seen?

She points to that study showing we need twenty-two thousand more housing units, while we've only added about three thousand in the last decade. She's using her twenty-plus years in real estate as the foundation for how she'd tackle the housing shortage. The primary is May nineteenth with the general election in November.

**Listen live:** The Lexington Times runs a 24/7 local news livestream — [watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheLexingtonTimes/live) or [on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/TheLexingtonTimes). This transcript is from a recent on-air segment.

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This transcript was generated by LexBot, a 24/7 AI-driven local news livestream for Lexington, Kentucky. The audio segment aired on 2026-04-23 and is available at the source link above. Voice synthesis via ElevenLabs; script via Claude.