Voters will reshape Roanoke’s city council next month as they select at least two new faces from a large and politically diverse group of candidates.
Whether one will be a Republican — for the first time since 2004 — is a question generating debate.
Although party labels do not appear on the ballot, which will settle a regular and a special election, Republicans like their chances and see themselves making inroads over the issue of gun violence.
Charlie Nave, chairman of the Roanoke City Republican Committee, said the election of a Republican on Nov. 8 “could totally happen.” It will require persuading some voters who have never voted Republican to cross over to the GOP, he said.
GOP candidate Nick Hagen said he would love to see victory for each of four Republican contenders — a sweep — but predicted at least one will win. Voting concludes Nov. 8.
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The Republican slate includes Hagen, Dalton Baugess, Maynard Keller and Peg McGuire.
“This is a good year for it. I think people are tired of the same old, same old,” said Hagen, a lawyer making his first run for elected office.
Ralph Smith, 80, now of Botetourt County was the last Republican to serve on the Roanoke council with one mayoral term from 2000 to 2004. He said that it’s time for change, saying that’s especially true in light of Roanoke crime concerns.
Police have reported 52 shootings in the city so far this year, compared to 56 at this time last year. The latest number exceeds pre-pandemic levels.
“Who’s there now hasn’t succeeded. It’s only gotten worse,” Smith said. “Hopefully there will be enough people in Roanoke that decide ‘let’s try something different.’”
Five Democrats and two independents serve on the seven-member council. Two of the Democrats, Joe Cobb and Vivian Sanchez-Jones, will need voter approval to continue. Cobb seeks election to a second term, while Sanchez-Jones, appointed in 2020, seeks her first full term. And Peter Volosin, making his second run for the Roanoke council, is also running as a Democrat.
But two other factors make this year’s race dynamic. Council member Bill Bestpitch, a former Democrat now an independent, chose not to seek reelection, placing his seat up for grabs in the general election, along with those of Cobb and Sanchez-Jones. The ballot lists nine people — three Republicans, three Democrats and three independents — and voters will pick three.
The independents are former Democrat and former city Mayor David Bowers, Jamaal Jackson and Preston Tyler.
In addition, voters will decide a special election to pick a permanent successor for former Councilman Robert Jeffrey Jr., who forfeited his seat after convictions for embezzlement and obtaining money by false pretenses. That race has attracted two contenders, the Republican McGuire and Democrat Luke Priddy.
Four new people could join council, but two seats are certain to change hands.
Roanoke, which is 62% white and 28% Black, has traditionally favored Democrats, not unusual when it comes to urban versus rural areas in Virginia, or elsewhere.
And while influential Republicans served on council in years past — the late Noel C. Taylor, one of Roanoke’s most revered leaders included — no member of the party has served for two decades. During Smith’s mayoral term, he served most of that as the lone Republican after Republican Bill Carder, who was elected at the same time, became an independent during his term. In addition, Carder resigned before completing his term.
And, while multiple Republicans have run for the Roanoke council since then, including in 2020, voters have picked Democrats and independents over every GOP candidate who tried to follow in Smith’s shoes.
Demographically, the council’s trending more inclusive. Voters installed the council’s first Black majority, in 2020, and seated its first openly gay member, in 2018. As of this spring, four council members are women, a milestone reached with the appointment of Anita Price to succeed Jeffrey.
Also this year, Republicans Keller and McGuire, who ran unsuccessfully in 2020, are back. McGuire has resumed her bid to serve on council after winning 11 of 20 precincts in 2020. She finished fourth after the three winners of that year’s election.
“I believe we have the best shot we’ve had in a long time to get some Republicans elected. Because of such a wide field, I can’t guarantee anything. I know that our message has resonated,” she said.
Keller, who came in seventh in 2020, agreed. “The things that we stand for are mainstream, I believe, and people like that. People are pretty mainstream. People like better schools, lower taxes, lower crime,” he said.
Keller said he has taken the pulse of voters outside the election office on Kimball Avenue, now open for early voting. He joined the first dozen people to vote early when early voting began Sept. 23 and has campaigned there every morning since when the office was open, he said.
“When you’re not an incumbent and people have to know who you are, showing up is half of all success,” he said.
McGuire’s returned to her 2020 campaign strategy, with expanded door-knocking. “We are visiting a lot of the places we normally didn’t hit before,” she said, describing a previous focus on households identified by campaign intelligence as Republican. They skipped homes believed likely to vote Democratic.
This time, she said she has knocked on doors of “hard Democrats” in such neighborhoods as Melrose-Rugby and Lincoln Terrace. McGuire, a marketing professional, said she and Bauguess talked for 15 to 30 minutes with six different people Friday.
Baugess, who is making his first run for elected office, also knocked on doors alone Wednesday in Northwest Roanoke, where the brunt of gun violence has occurred, with a pledge to address crime. At a home on Forest Park Boulevard, resident Cynthia Jones told him that she heard a gunshot the day gunfire killed a teen-age boy on Palm Avenue Northwest, just around the corner. The incident, one of three fatal shootings in the neighborhood in recent memory, left 15-year-old Demarion D. Sanders dead Sept. 3.
Jones pledged her vote to Baugess, a veteran public safety officer and current logistics officer for the Salem Fire Department who plans to retire next year if elected.
“All I want is the violence to stop, because it’s crazy,” Jones said in an interview after talking with the candidate.
Party label is unimportant, Jones said. It matters more than she senses a candidate’s commitment to do what they pledge to do, she said.
Bestpitch said he hasn’t followed the campaigns enough to gauge the Republicans’ chances but described party label as less important than agenda.
“What’s really important is not just who can get elected or not elected. What’s important is do the new members of city council want to continue to working to keep things moving in the direction that Roanoke has been moving in for the last several years,” he said, citing support of the health and medicine industry and investments in quality of life amenities such as parks and libraries, “or do they want to come in and really upset the apple cart?”
Roanoke Forward, a political action committee backing the Republican contenders, has called for change.
It paid for a newspaper advertisement that named the Republican candidates and was titled, “ROANOKE IS OFF THE RAILS” with the tagline, “Help us clean up this mess!”
Another PAC, the Business Leadership Fund, has endorsed three Republicans — Baugess, Keller and McGuire — plus independent candidate Bowers. Each received $4,000.
The fund does not consider party when making endorsements, chairman Larry Jackson said. It picks those candidates who demonstrate a grasp of key issues and capacity to provide solutions.
“We would rather there not be a D, an I or an R beside anyone’s name. Their stance on issues is what matters,” Jackson said.
There’s little evidence suggesting city politics won’t be partisan at least to some extent in the future.
“I have an ambition to flip this city,” said Nave, the local Republican chair for the past four years. “I think it’s going to take 20 years and we’re in year four.”
Nave said he has identified five or six people he plans to urge to run for mayor in 2024.