Roanoke-Lynchburg · the strongest Democratic and Republican presidential performances recorded here, measured three ways.
1892–2024 · 34 presidential cycles
Highest vote share
Largest share of the presidential candidate vote cast here.
Democratic
Franklin D. Roosevelt1932
67.1%
60,022 votes · D+35.6
Runner-up · Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 · 66.1%
Republican
Richard Nixon1972
71.9%
234,367 votes · R+46.1
Runner-up · Ronald Reagan, 1984 · 64.1%
Most votes
Largest number of votes cast for the party’s presidential nominee here.
Democratic
Barack Obama2008
228,112votes
43.2% of the vote · R+12.4
Runner-up · Joe Biden, 2020 · 221,321 votes
Republican
Donald Trump2024
382,057votes
63.1% of the vote · R+27.6
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2020 · 365,309 votes
Best relative to the U.S.
This Place’s margin against the national margin in the same election — positive when it leaned toward the party more than the country did.
Democratic
John W. Davis1924
+49.5pts D vs U.S.
Place D+24.3 · U.S. R+25.2
Runner-up · James M. Cox, 1920 · +42.6 pts
Republican
Donald Trump2020
+28.6pts R vs U.S.
Place R+24.1 · U.S. D+4.5
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2016 · +27.7 pts
U.S. House elections · 3 House
Senate and governor results are in the Office selector at the top of this page.
U.S. House
On a multi-state Place, each row sums votes cast in the separate U.S. House races held inside the Place that year. It is a geographic vote total, not one contest or a seat tally.
Roanoke-Lynchburg · 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-Lynchburg, by party and cycle.
Party
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
Democratic
Clinton18Obama18106,812 votes · 36 of 36 countiesprimary
Clinton30Sanders669,393 votes · 36 of 36 countiesprimary
Biden35Sanders1113,209 votes · 36 of 36 countiesprimary
○no contest record
Republicannot ingested
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○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
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2026R+20.2
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+27.6
Registration leans Republican; the presidential vote runs 7.5 points more Republican than the rolls.
DemocraticRepublicanUnaffiliatedOther parties
† Some years predate full county coverage; a flagged year sums only the counties reporting it.
Voter registration in Roanoke-Lynchburg
Year
Total registered
Democratic
Republican
Unaffiliated
Other
2026 (partial)
5,498
1,320
2,429
1,646
103
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+4,473 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net +18,841 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Roanoke-Lynchburg in Roanoke-Lynchburg: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−447
2012
−25
2013
+1,621
2014
−35
2015
−421
2016
−1,203
2017
−589
2018
+1,330
2019
−43
2021
+2,883
2022
+3,302
2023
+4,514
2024
+3,481
2025
+4,473
The Roanoke-Lynchburg market spans the Blue Ridge Mountains and Piedmont foothills, blending mid-size urban centers with deeply rural counties that have shifted reliably toward Republican margins at the federal level since the 1990s.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 38.7 points in 1912 and a Republican high of 46.1 points in 1972. Between 2020 and 2024 the market moved 3.5 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 27.6 points.
A population of 1,142,874, a 76% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $63,849 describe the market. The market's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Tri-Cities, TN-VA and Lexington.
Akashic
Political twins — media markets
The media markets 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-Lynchburg, Virginia. Akashic. https://akashic.app/dma/573/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia voted Republican by 27.6 points (R+27.6), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 605,233 votes cast, 214,836 went Democratic and 382,057 went Republican.
When did Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia voted Democratic was 1976.
How many people live in Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia?
Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia has a population of 1,142,874 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia?
Median household income in Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia is $63,849 — below the national median of $80,734. The Virginia state median is $93,170.
What is the political history of Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 15 went Democratic and 19 went Republican.
