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In addition to the widely covered national elections, voters in Rockbridge County, Lexington and Buena Vista also made their voices heard in several local races, including the inaugural election for seats on the Lexington School Board.
Tammy Dunn, the lone candidate in the School Board race who was seeking reelection, won the most votes, securing 1,245 votes across early in-person ballots, Election Day ballots, and mailed absentee ballots. The other three candidates vying for two seats on the Board were separated by a margin of 50 votes, with the seats going to Kasey Potter and Katie Masey, who won 1,047 and 1,023 votes, respectively. Meghan Ferguson, the fourth candidate on the ballot, received 992 votes.
In the Lexington City Council race, incumbent candidates Marylin Alexander and Leslie Straughan each will retain their seats. Alexander had the most votes in the race with 1,396 and Straughan finished second with 1,289. John Driscoll won the third Council seat up for election with 1,136 votes. Madeline Robinson, the other candidate on the ballot, secured 858 votes.
Mayor Frank Friedman, who ran unopposed, was also reelected, with 2,028 votes.
In Buena Vista, the special election for the open seat on City Council went to Stanley Coffey, who won 1,320 votes over opponent Jody Fix’s 1,099.
Both Goshen and Glasgow had seats on their town councils up for election this year. Glasgow had three seats up for election, with the three incumbent candidates all running for reelection. Natalie Harris secured the most votes with 62, while Marcie Hill and Brandall Branch won 57 and 55 votes, respectively. According to the Virginia Department of Elections, none of the candidates received any votes on Election Day, with their votes all coming on early in-person or mailed absentee ballots.
The two seats up for grabs on Goshen’s town council were decided largely by Election Day votes. Shelia Sampson won the most votes with 92 and incumbent Steve Bickley secured 88 votes to retain his seat. Jeff Shaffer, the third candidate running for Council, got 57 votes.
The proposed constitutional amendment was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters in both cities and the county, with 2,549 yes votes in Buena Vista, 2,260 in Lexington, and 11,506 in Rockbridge County.
In the national races, Donald Trump won Rockbridge County with 8,304 votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 4,085. Trump also carried Buena Vista, with 1,928 votes to Harris’s 736.
Republican candidates in the senate and congressional races also won in Buena Vista and the county. Hung Cao outperformed Tim Kaine in Buena Vista by a margin of nearly 1,000 votes (1,800 to 887), and Ben Cline won 1,968 votes in the city to Ken Mitchell’s 664. In the county, Cao won 8,056 votes, while Kaine got 4,438, and Cline won with 8,474 votes over Mitchell’s 3,869.
Democrats fared better in Lexington, with Harris outperforming Trump nearly two-to-one. The vice president won 1,648 votes, while Trump got 874. Kaine led Cao 1,665 to 901, and Mitchell had 1,554 votes to Cline’s 957.
Voter turnout in Rockbridge County was at 74 percent, with 12,648 of the 16,991 registered voters casting ballots. Lexington and Buena Vista had turnouts of 60 and 59 percent, respectively. In Buena Vista, 2,743 voters of the 4,626 registered cast a ballot, as did 2,602 of Lexington’s 4,333 registered voters.
