Roanokers will go to the polls on Tuesday, May 1st to vote for a mayor and three members of city council. Over the weekend, the city’s Democrats selected their nominees for what is shaping up to be an uneventful election.
Incumbent mayor David Bowers handily turned back a challenge from businessman Sam Rasoul, to win Saturday’s firehouse primary with 867 votes to Rasoul’s 526. (If the name Sam Rasoul sounds familiar, it’s likely because as a political neophyte, Rasoul challenged Rep. Bob Goodlatte for the 6th Congressional District seat in 2008.) After conceding defeat, Rasoul heartily endorsed Mayor Bowers’ candidacy. All three incumbent councilmen whose seats are up this spring, Sherman Lea, Anita Price and Court Rosen, were unopposed at the firehouse primary.
The recent past has been challenging for Roanoke Democrats: a bitter dispute over the future of Victory Stadium prompted three councilmen and the then-mayor Nelson Harris to bolt the party. In 2006, their independent “For the City” ticket defeated the “real Democrats” in that year’s election. Even after the stadium was demolished and the issue put behind Roanokers, Mayor Nelson struggled with his popularity and was ultimately defeated by David Bowers in 2008.
Through it all, Roanoke Republicans were unable to capitalize on the split within the Democratic Party. The city has only one elected Republican official, Sheriff Octavia Johnson. Since the city’s charter requires that all city council seats be elected at-large, pick-up opportunities are rare in such a heavily Democrat city. The relative tranquility of the last four years, combined with the low support Dave Nutter received last November in the city’s heaviest Republican precincts, does not portend well for the city’s Republicans this spring. To date, the city’s Republicans have yet to field a candidate to challenge Bowyers (who has held the office on-and-off since 1992) or the incumbent councilmen.
Republican, Tea Partiers and independents wishing to challenge the status quo in the Star City have until March 6th to submit their paperwork.
