Christiansburg Mayor Mike Barber re-elected
Marty Gordon
NRVsports@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Vice Mayor Michael Sutphin has been declared Blacksburg’s new mayor. In the most recent unofficial numbers, he claimed the top spot by 18 votes.
Initially, election night results showed Pete Macedo had won the mayoral seat. But Montgomery County officials had to verify as many as 2,000 provisional ballots, which gave Sutphin the win.
The percentage of 49.35 and 49.13 is so close, Macedo is considering a request for a recount. Sutphin received 5,573 votes to Macedo’s 5,555.
Most of those provisional votes were in precincts populated by Virgina Tech students. Election officials also said there were a large number of mail-in ballots, which had to be counted.
Sutphin was first elected to Blacksburg Town Council in 2011 and most recently reelected in 2023.
Three council seats were up for grabs in Blacksburg with two incumbents, Lauren Colliver and Susan Anderson, returning to the governing body. Darryl Campbell was the newcomer to be elected as he garnered 5,259 votes. Anderson received 7,007 votes to Colliver’s 5,370 votes.
In Christiansburg, Incumbent Mayor Michael Barber defeated retired educator Carl Pauli 5,961 to 3,449 votes.
Three seats were up for election in Christiansburg with incumbent Tanya Hockett leading the way with 4,526 votes. The other two winners were Christine Waltz (3,991) and Beth Umberger (3,941).
Democrat Lily Franklin flipped the 41st House of Delegates seat with 17,683 votes to incumbent Chris Obenshain’s 15,460 votes.
In the 42nd House race, Jason Ballard was returned to office with 20,254 and 12,222 for challenger Bike Agozino.
Montgomery County only had one contested school board race. Dana Partin tallied 2,984 votes to Adam Ryan’s 1,989 in District C. Both incumbent Jamie Bond (District D) and newcomer Matthew Roberts (District A) were elected to the board.
In the county’s board of supervisor election, Gunin Kiran (District A) Steve Fijalkowski (District C) and Todd King (District D) were unopposed.
