The fair place to meet is Denver, CO — the city closest to the midpoint of Portland and Raleigh. From the farther side that’s about 30 hr 36 min of driving.
Recommended midpoint
Denver, CO
From Portland
20 hr 34 min
981 mi to Denver
From Raleigh
30 hr 36 min
1,460 mi to Denver
Portland has the shorter trip; the split is off by about 10 hr 2 min. The alternatives below can even it out. Portland and Raleigh are about 2,372 miles apart.
Portland and Raleigh are about 2,372 miles apart by road. Split the difference and you arrive near Denver, the city closest to the halfway point between them. That puts roughly 20 hr 34 min of driving on the Portland side and 30 hr 36 min on the Raleigh side — the fairest single meeting point among the cities near the middle.
Over this distance most people will fly rather than drive the whole way. Denver still makes a fair, central place for Portland and Raleigh to converge, splitting the travel instead of asking one side to cross the country.
If Denver doesn't have what you're after, Omaha and Kansas City are also close to the midpoint and worth a look — each keeps the drive reasonably balanced between Portland and Raleigh.
Denver is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Officially a consolidated city and county, it is located in the South Platte River valley on the western edge of the High Plains, and is just east of the Front Range of the Rocky… Read more →
Portland is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in the Pacific Northwest at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, it is the 28th-most populous city in the United States, sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and… Read more →
Raleigh is the capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the second-most populous city in the state, tenth most populous city in the Southeast, the largest city in the Research Triangle area, and the 39th-most populous city in the U.S. Read more →
City descriptions adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA); photos via Wikimedia Commons, credited above.
Estimates use straight-line distance and typical road speeds; real drive times vary with route and traffic.