Roanoke Mayor's Race Too Close To Call As Bowers Holds 19-Vote Lead Over Cobb

Election Day in Roanoke ended with the city’s mayor’s race going down to the wire, and the race is too close to call.

Republican David Bowers held a 19-vote lead over Democrat Joe Cobb out of more than 41,000 votes cast, with possibly 1,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted, which could sway the race.

Bowers eked out the small lead when the last precinct reporting, East Gate in Northeast Roanoke, put him over the top for the first time all night in a three-person race. Should Bowers’s lead stand, it would be the fifth time he has won a Roanoke mayoral election, and the first time as a Republican after winning previously as a Democrat in 1992, 1996 and 2012 and as an independent in 2008.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to prevail,” Bowers told reporters at 11:30 p.m. at a Republican watch party. “We’re going to continue to hold this seat, and we’ll have a change at Roanoke city hall.”

Virginia allows for same-day registration for voters, with those voters’ ballots given a provisional status. If the voter’s eligibility is confirmed, the vote will be counted. If the voter is determined to be ineligible, the ballot will not count.

It could take another week before Roanoke residents learn who their next mayor is.

Nick Ocampo, the city’s director of elections and general registrar, said provisional ballots won’t be counted until Monday and Tuesday.

Cobb, the city’s vice mayor and two-term City Council member, would be Roanoke’s first openly gay mayor. Bowers would be the first Republican mayor since Ralph Smith won a similarly close three-way race in 2000 (a race that Bowers lost as an incumbent Democrat).

Independent candidate Stephanie Moon Reynolds was aiming to be the city's first woman mayor.

“I don’t have any regrets. I’m glad I ran,” Moon Reynolds said. “I think I ran a great race and I think the people spoke.”

With provisional votes yet to be counted, preliminary results gave Bowers 14,802 votes (37.25 percent), Cobb was 0.05 percentage points behind with 14,783 and Moon Reynolds was a distant third with 9,961 votes (25 percent).

Cobb did not concede the race at the end of the night. Standing on a stage at 5 Points Music Sanctuary where local Democrats had gathered to watch returns come in, Cobb told supporters, “Until the final word is given, I am still a candidate for mayor of the city of Roanoke.”

Moon Reynolds might have played spoiler by peeling away votes from Cobb in the city’s predominantly African-American precincts, which usually vote for Democrats. Cobb clearly lost hundreds of votes in Black-dominated precincts to Moon Reynolds, who finished first in Lincoln Terrace, Eureka Park and Forest Park in Election Day votes. Those precincts went strong for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Conversely, Moon Reynolds appeared to pull Election Day votes from Bowers in Republican strongholds in Hollins, Southeast and Preston Park, where he ran behind numbers posted by Republican nominee Donald Trump. Results came in at a snail’s pace, with results from the city’s 20 precincts arriving one at a time in a drip, drip, drip fashion that took nearly four hours.

With 19 precincts reporting, Cobb held a 290-vote lead over Bowers, who took the East Gate precinct over Cobb by 329 votes to take the final lead of the night.

When asked if he believed that Moon Reynolds had possibly cost him the election, Cobb demurred.

“Who knows?” Cobb said. “It’s always hard when there are three candidates.”

Cobb’s campaign manager, Matt Jones, was more certain about Moon Reynolds’ impact on the race.

“I think she peeled off our side a little bit,” Jones said.

The final close result came as a bit of a surprise after a Roanoke College poll released last week indicated Cobb would receive 50 percent of the vote to Bowers’s 26 percent and Moon Reynolds’s 18 percent.

Bowers described the poll as “a bunch of blarney.”

The Democratic mood was jubilant at the start of Tuesday’s party, which started just as polls closed at 7 p.m. A trio called Sunshine played rock nuggets from the 1970s and 1980s as a boisterous crowd of nearly 100 noshed on hors d'oeuvres and quaffed adult beverages. As the reporting of results dragged on for more than three hours, the crowd thinned, the snacks were devoured and the band ended its set, all before the final precincts were called.

Republicans were celebratory as results came in and Republican City Council candidate Nick Hagen held an increasing lead over independent Evelyn Powers. As the final precincts reported for mayor with Bowers leading by 19 votes, whoops and hollers echoed out across the second floor of Sidewinders Steak House and Saloon.

“There were 19 angels up there, Charlie, 19 angels that came through for us today,” Bowers said to Republican committee chairman Charlie Nave.

Raising a glass in a toast later, Bowers said, “To the greatest upset in the history of Roanoke.”

During the campaign, Bowers said he’s unhappy with the city’s path, particularly over policies that ended exclusively single-family zoning and with public safety.

He said he would repeal the zoning policy, noting that three Council members elected Tuesday also had concerns with the changes.

On the campaign trail, Cobb, a chaplain, highlighted Roanoke as a welcoming and inclusive city that has made progress. He said the city’s zoning changes will allow for more housing to be built, and that his efforts have helped expand public transit and reduce gun violence.

Cobb said if elected he would work to expand transit into Roanoke County and reduce rates of homelessness and crime.

Voters cited economic development as their most important local issue, with half citing crime, homelessness and housing as top concerns, according to the Roanoke College poll.