Roanoke may have a three-way race for mayor. History will be made no matter what.

Roanoke voters this fall may have something they haven’t had in two decades: an actual choice for mayor.

Technically, Roanoke voters have had choices most election years, in the sense that there were multiple candidates on the ballot. However, Roanoke is a predominantly Democratic city and, even though some non-Democrats have come close to winning, the playing field has always been tilted toward the D side of the ledger.

Now what’s shaping up is a potential three-way race for mayor, which could still see a Democrat win as a matter of course, but also opens the door for an independent or a Republican to win. Regardless of who wins, Roanoke could also be on a route toward making history — by electing either its first openly gay mayor, or its first female mayor or its first Republican in almost a quarter-century — or possibly returning David Bowers to office for an unprecedented fifth term. 

This is all occasioned by the retirement of Democrat Sherman Lea, who has served two terms as mayor but before that was a longtime member of council and the school board. 

Let’s look at the options and then do some electoral math.

The candidates for mayor

Joe Cobb will almost assuredly be the Democratic nominee. He was elected to the Roanoke City Council in 2018 and reelected in 2022, and he led the balloting each time to become the vice mayor (Roanoke elects all its council members at large). 

Stephanie Moon was the city clerk for 13 years. When she retired from that post, she ran for the council as an independent and was elected in 2020. On Saturday, she announced she’ll run for mayor as an independent, too.

That leaves Republicans, often an afterthought in city elections — no Republican has been elected to the city council since 2000 — but who this year face a consequential decision. Last fall, former Mayor David Bowers, who used to be a Democrat but who of late has run as an independent, announced he is now a Republican. That was widely seen as a precursor to seeking the Republican nomination for mayor. The key word there is “seeking,” because Republicans may have other choices. If they nominated Bowers, they’d put up a recognizable name who over the years has been a popular vote-getter with the kind of working-class voters who now identify as Republicans. However, Bowers’ appeal has declined of late — election returns bear this out. Republicans would also inherit Bowers’ record, for better or for worse. If Republicans think Bowers’ name remains powerful enough to win, they have a candidate waiting. If they think nominating Bowers negates the power of putting up a candidate who can claim to be a fresh face, then they need to find someone else — but might already have such a figure already in their midst.

Let’s see what the math shows us about some potential matchups.

Democrats probably have 22,286 to 26,773 votes waiting for them

The key thing to remember is that the mayoral election will be in November, at the same time as the presidential election. No matter how poorly Joe Biden runs, he’ll win Roanoke. Roanoke has not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s landslide over Walter Mondale in 1984.

That means any candidates running for mayor this fall need to take into account the political environment they’ll be running in. We’re seeing ticket-splitting on the decline, so any Democratic candidate for mayor enters the race with an advantage. In 2020, that meant 26,773 votes for Biden in Roanoke, up from the 22,286 that Hillary Clinton received in 2016. Barack Obama took 24,134 in 2012 and 24,934 in 2008. Barring some unforeseen electoral disaster, it seems fair to estimate that the Democratic vote in Roanoke in November will be in that range — somewhere between 22,286 and 26,773.

There were some Biden voters in 2020 who didn’t back the Democratic candidate for mayor. Why not?

We also know there’s always some ballot drop-off between the top-of-the-ticket presidential race and lower-ballot contests. In 2020, the only other time Roanoke has held a November mayoral race, Lea polled 21,552 votes. That means 5,221 people who voted for Biden did not vote for the Democratic candidate for mayor. Now here’s a curiosity: 43,223 people in Roanoke voted in the presidential election, 41,178 voted in the mayoral race — so the total voter drop-off from the presidential race to the mayoral election was 2,045. Lea’s drop-off was steeper than that. What accounts for the difference? Why was his drop-off 5,221 and not 2,045 or some lesser number? My guess is that there were some voters who voted for Biden for president — and then Bowers for mayor, which does speak to Bowers’ enduring popularity with some voting blocs (or perhaps Lea’s unpopularity with those same groups). These could also be “never Trump” Republican voters who voted for Biden just to keep Trump out of office, and then voted for Bowers so they wouldn’t be voting for a Democrat for mayor. 

Unfortunately, we can’t analyze the 2020 returns as closely as I’d like because under the early voting rules in force at the time, most of those ballots are attributed to the “central absentee precinct,” not actual precincts. A new law sponsored by state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, fixes that, but it can’t undo the past — so our understanding of that 2020 mayoral race is limited. Based on my understanding of Roanoke politics over the years, I’m guessing that Bowers did well among predominantly white, working-class precincts, but I have no way to prove that. 

We will have to keep looking for numbers.

More people have voted for Cobb than for Moon

Moon was elected in 2020. She ran third among eight candidates; the top three vote-getters won. Moon polled 12,287 votes; the top council vote-getter that year — Trish White-Boyd — took 21,892. Since voters had three votes to cast in that race, we can get a clear measurement. White-Boyd took almost as many votes as Lea did in the separate mayor’s race, but then there was substantial drop-off until Moon with 12,287 votes was the last candidate across the line. Again, the accumulation of so many votes in the absentee precinct prevents much analysis about where Moon’s support was — and wasn’t. 

Cobb ran in his first November election in his 2022 reelection bid — and he led the ticket with 12,485 votes. That’s not much more than Moon polled; however, Cobb was running in a lower-turnout election. The big driver that year was the 6th District congressional race.

So here’s how we need to look at things: In 2020, when Roanoke had 43,223 people voting in the presidential race, some 12,287 stuck around to vote for Moon for council. In 2022, when Roanoke had 26,3230 people voting in the congressional race, 12,485 stuck around to vote for Cobb.

That — along with Roanoke’s general Democratic tilt — suggests to me that Cobb would be a strong favorite over Moon if this were a two-person race. It likely won’t be, though. How can we measure the potential strength of a Republican candidate for mayor in a three-way race?

Republican options: Bowers or someone else?

We know that Bowers polled 19,247 in his independent bid for mayor against Lea in 2020 — so more people have a history of voting for Bowers than they do voting for Cobb or Moon. However, we don’t know the motivations of those voters. How many were voting for Bowers and how many were voting against Lea? We have no way to tell. However, if you’re Bowers, and you want the Republican nomination, those are the numbers you point to — and say: “Look how well I did as an independent. Let me be your nominee and I can probably win.”

However, Republicans might also want to take a second look at one of their previous candidates, Peg McGuire. She ran for the city council in 2020 and was easily the stronger of the two Republican candidates running that year. She also almost won — she took 11,268, more than one of the Democratic candidates that year. She finished fourth, just out of the money. She ran again in 2022 in a special election for an open seat. She lost again, this time in a two-way race, but still polled 11,026 votes in a lower-turnout election and finished with 43.9% of the vote. In percentage terms, McGuire’s popularity improved. 

The question for Republicans: Would she be a stronger candidate than Bowers in a three-way race? She seems to have a solid 11,000 or so voters behind her. Bowers’ vote has fluctuated wildly over the years. While he took 19,247 in the two-way mayoral race in 2020, the next year he took just 5,967 and finished seventh in a nine-way council race. Which is the truer measure of Bowers’ support? In 2006, Bowers finished fifth in a nine-way council race. The following year, he was returned to the mayor’s office in a two-way race. McGuire’s vote seems more reliable, but is it enough to win in a three-way race?

Bowers ran better than Trump in 2020 so might expand the Republican vote

Here’s another way to look at things. Four years ago, Biden took 26,773 votes in Roanoke, Donald Trump 15,607. For the sake of argument, let’s assume those are the same tallies again. McGuire has twice polled a little more than 11,000 votes, so she seems capable of retaining almost all of those Republican votes. On the other hand, Bowers has demonstrated that he can run stronger than Trump — he took 19,427 votes when he was the only alternative to the Democratic candidate for mayor. Two years later, though, when he ran as an independent against a slate of Democrats and Republicans (and some other independents), his vote collapsed. Will the real Bowers vote please stand up?

How many Democratic votes will Cobb give up in a three-way race?

Cobb starts higher than McGuire’s 11,000 or so — behind Bowers’ demonstrated ability to pull 19,427 votes in 2020 but well ahead of his 5,967 two years ago.

Cobb took 12,485 in a lower-turnout election. However, he would seem on track to take most of the 26,773 Biden votes if this were a two-way race. But it’s probably not. Moon’s independent candidacy complicates things for Cobb. Democrats have historically run up overwhelming margins in the city’s historically Black precincts. How many of those votes will go to Moon instead? Could Moon take away enough support in Roanoke’s Black community that she tips the election to a Republican? Or could Moon build enough support citywide that she wins in a three-way race? Or should Republicans forgo both the Bowers and McGuire options and not nominate anyone? Should they back Moon instead, on the theory that she’s the best way to keep out a Democrat? Without knowing the precise returns on a precinct level for the past few elections, it’s hard to use math to answer those questions.

What about the issues?

Oh, yes, those. We don’t know yet. Moon made no policy pronouncements in her announcement Saturday, instead emphasizing her years of service to the city. Her website lists some things she’s interested in, such as “blight and derelict properties” and “gun violence intervention,” but gives no specifics. Cobb’s website lists five topics he’s focused on — transportation, education, community safety, housing and jobs — but again, no specifics. It’s early yet, the election is almost eight months off, so there’s plenty of time for details. If there’s a Republican candidate, I assume that candidate will offer a critique of the current city government and promise a new direction. We’ll just have to see what kind of proposed direction that is. The city certainly doesn’t lack for issues.

Roanoke has a rising homicide rate when the rest of the country is seeing the homicide rate decline. Why, and what can be done about that?

Roanoke’s population is declining again, primarily because deaths outnumber births, although the city does suffer some net out-migration — more people moving out than moving in. What can be done to reverse that? If the answer to that is build more housing, where should that housing be, since most proposed housing developments draw neighborhood opposition? And whatever the proposed housing solution is, how does that square with what the marketplace is actually demanding?

Roanoke’s school enrollment, which had been growing, is now projected to decline — a function of an aging population, not just here but elsewhere. What should be done to attract younger adults who might have children (and also reverse the city’s overall population decline)? That, of course, ties back to the housing issue, and lots of others.

Roanoke also has the lowest educational attainment level of any community in the Roanoke Valley. In an economy that puts a value on education, what can be done to change this?

If voters really want to hear issues, those are among the issues that ought to be discussed.

The history Roanoke is about to make

All we know for sure is history, and here it is:

• If Cobb is elected, he’d be the first openly gay mayor in Roanoke’s history, and, near as I can tell, the first openly gay mayor of any large city in Virginia. 
  
• Roanoke has never had a woman as mayor. Alice Hincker took 30.2% as a Republican in a three-way race won by Nelson Harris in 2004. The Roanoke Times called her “the first party-backed woman to run for mayor of Roanoke,” leaving open the possibility of independent candidates. The State Board of Elections website only has data going back to 2000, but in 2008 independent Anita Powell ran for mayor and took 4%.
  
• Bowers is tied with Noel Taylor; both were elected to four teams as mayor (although Taylor served longer because he ascended to the post when the incumbent died). By winning again, Bowers could eclipse that record. He’s already the Grover Cleveland of Roanoke, having served his terms non-consecutively. He now hopes to become Roanoke’s MIlls Godwin, who served one term as governor as a Democrat, the other as a Republican.
   
• Republicans haven’t won a council seat in Roanoke since 2000 when Ralph Smith won the mayor’s race with 35.4% of the vote in a four-way race and Bill Carder led the balloting for council. That’s the race that usually gets cited whenever there’s talk of a more than two-candidate race in Roanoke, and it’s certainly an instructive one. However, there was a three-way race for mayor in 2004 as well, and that one went to Democrats, so a three-way race certainly isn’t fatal to Democratic hopes.

All we know for sure is that there will be an election.