Roanoke, VA · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Roanoke, VA, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
Total registered voters, over time
Registered voters
Voter registration in Roanoke, VA
Year
Total registered
2016
214,366
2018
212,789
2020
222,421
2022
227,262
2024
234,190
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+597 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net +4,450 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Roanoke, VA in Roanoke, VA: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−25
2012
+505
2013
+896
2014
+236
2015
−179
2016
−1,081
2017
+149
2018
+319
2019
+534
2021
+557
2022
+343
2023
+800
2024
+799
2025
+597
Roanoke's consolidated metro leans Democratic in its urban core but is ringed by reliably Republican rural counties, making the overall margin a consistent bellwether for southwestern Virginia's shifting political balance.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 45.2 points in 1912 and a Republican high of 36.0 points in 1972. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 2.0 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 18.5 points.
A population of 314,986, a 76% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $70,385 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Winston-Salem, NC and Birmingham, AL.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Roanoke, VA, Virginia. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/40220/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Roanoke, VA, Virginia voted Republican by 18.5 points (R+18.5), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 168,702 votes cast, 67,445 went Democratic and 98,686 went Republican.
When did Roanoke, VA, Virginia last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Roanoke, VA, Virginia voted Democratic was 1976.
How many people live in Roanoke, VA, Virginia?
Roanoke, VA, Virginia has a population of 314,986 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Roanoke, VA, Virginia?
Median household income in Roanoke, VA, Virginia is $70,385 — below the national median of $80,734. The Virginia state median is $93,170.
What is the political history of Roanoke, VA, Virginia?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Roanoke, VA, Virginia from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 15 went Democratic and 19 went Republican.
