2012.02.04
Bowers defeats Rasoul, sending Democratic incumbency ticket to the May 1 general election
Incumbent David Bowers hugs his girlfriend Margarita Cubas after learning he won the Democratic nomination for mayor. Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl / The Roanoke Times
Incumbent Mayor David Bowers handily defeated challenger Sam Rasoul in a firehouse primary at William Fleming High School earlier today.
Bowers won 867 (62 percent) votes to Rasoul’s 526 (38 percent).
With the automatic nominations of the three incumbent council members — Sherman Lea, Anita Price and Court Rosen — this means the Democrats will field a group of nominees who all are seeking re-election.
That’s the first time in recent memory — certainly the first in the post-Victory Stadium era — that all of the incumbents are seeking re-election as a team.
Roanoke City Republican Committee Chairman Chris Walters said his party is stilll recruiting candidates but wasn’t willing to name any names just yet.
I know of one independent who is collecting signatures to run for council, but otherwise that’s the only other potential candidate I’ve heard about.
What do you think? Will this ticket of incumbents cruise to a win in the general election on May 1? Or are there plot twists still to come between now and the March 6 deadline for candidates to file declarations and paperwork with the registrar?
– Mason Adams
LOL, Rasoul blames the “establishment” for his defeat-not his deficient Resume’.
Comment by mj — February 5, 2012 @ 10:51 am
As a long ago political figure in the valley–I loved Jim Olin but ran against him in 1990 because I detested his compromises with the Bush Admin budget cutters, then resident in DC.
And today as an observer from afar, I think ‘fire-house primaries’ like that recently run in Roanoke are about as democratic as a 1970 Soviet election. Or the Harry Byrd ‘White primaries’ of our state’s recent past.
How about free elections in Virginia–not just in Iraq–where everybody gets to vote–all day–on election day. And you get to be a candidate even if the Party brass objects. ( Usually the party brass objects because they fear they might be beaten–in an honest count of the votes.)
Comment by Gerald E Berg — February 5, 2012 @ 1:12 pm
Someone asked on the RT Facebook page how Rasoul did compared to the ’08 election.
To my mind, it’s really comparing apples and oranges, but the answer may be of interest to readers regardless.
Rasoul won 37 percent of the vote challenging Bob Goodlatte for Congress in ’08. In the city he won about 54 percent.
Against Bowers in Saturday’s firehouse primary, he won 38 percent.
But again, these are two very different types of elections: In ’08 he got 114,367 total votes; on Saturday he won 526 votes.
– Mason Adams
Comment by Mason Adams — February 5, 2012 @ 6:38 pm