Murray Wood: Saturday night leaver
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington, D.C. Council member Robert White Jr. won the Democratic primary for the district’s delegate to Congress on Tuesday, ushering in generational change for a position long held by the same candidate as the nation’s capital faces mounting pressures on its autonomy.
White’s win in the heavily Democratic city sets him up to take the top spot in November’s general elections, when he could replace 18-term delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Norton, 89 and a fixture of the Civil Rights movement, decided not to run again after facing growing concerns over her ability to forcefully push back against the Trump administration’s federal intervention into the city’s affairs.
White had campaigned on promises to fight for the city’s autonomy, which has been squeezed under President Donald Trump, who deployed the National Guard on an ongoing, open-ended mission meant to fight crime and rattled the capital’s economy by downsizing the federal workforce.
“My election means we’re going to keep our independence and we’re going to get statehood. People know I’m not going to lay down. I’m going to fight,” White told The Associated Press after his win was declared.
The D.C. delegate position is a nonvoting one, but it grants the nearly 700,000 people of the district, who have no other representation in Congress, a voice through speechmaking on the House floor and bill introduction.
The primary marked the first time in a generation that D.C. residents voted for a new mayor and delegate in the same election. And in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, that party’s winner is expected to come out on top in both races in November. The AP has not yet called a winner in the race for mayor.
Current Mayor Muriel Bowser, who was first elected in 2014, decided not to seek a fourth term. Democratic front-runners Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie are hoping to replace her. The primary includes ranked choice voting for the first time, which the district’s election officials have warned could delay results.
Trump looms large over the vote
Central to all the campaigns has been the city’s fraught relationship with the Trump administration and the federal government. The city has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.
That autonomy has been further squeezed under Trump, who launched a federal law enforcement surge last summer and sent in the National Guard. Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of people their jobs. He has also been reshaping the city by removing or renovating storied landmarks and putting his name or image on buildings.
Bowser found herself walking a fine line between staying in Trump’s good graces and responding to the concerns of constituents, many of whom said she didn’t push back hard enough on Trump’s actions.
Trump last week threatened a new federal takeover of Washington when asked about his response to a potential victory by Lewis George, a democratic socialist.
“Maybe we’d take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” he said.
Lewis George, who has pledged to protect the city’s autonomy, stood that ground at her post-election event where pop music blared and a crowd danced with the candidate on stage.
“If there was any doubt, right now we lay it to rest,” she said to cheering supporters. “It is the people of D.C. who elect the mayor.”
McDuffie, closing out the day at an event with supporters, echoed that sentiment.
“It is under threat right now, but Donald Trump does not run Washington, D.C. We do. The people of D.C. run Washington, D.C.,” McDuffie told the crowd. “And we will fight for D.C.’s autonomy every single day of the week.”
Neither candidate declared victory as preliminary results rolled in.
Federal intervention, affordability among candidates’ top priorities
Washington resident Fran Tatu, 69, said the National Guard deployment was a concern for her.
“What’s at stake — many young lives with the surge of federal officers by Trump and all of the troops that are here,” she said, adding that she was voting for Lewis George and White.
White said he plans to call for Washington residents and other actors to mobilize as much as possible and head to battleground states to help the campaigns of candidates who will be friendlier to the city’s needs.
“We cannot have a Congress that is in complete opposition to D.C. come January,” he said.
Candidates have also made affordability a priority, which Lewis George has blamed on the Trump administration. Public safety has also emerged as a top concern even as the Trump administration has touted its federal law enforcement intervention as a successful crime fighting initiative.
Other candidates for mayor include former council member Vincent Orange and Hope Solomon, a former federal contractor who lost her job because of cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency.
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A previous version of this story misspelled D.C. congressional delegate candidate Kinney Zalesne’s first name. It is Kinney, not Kenney.
Gary Fields, The Associated Press
