jonetta rose barras: DC Council member Kenyan McDuffie amps up the general election at-large race
“There is a difference between talking loudly and having warm and fuzzy relationships with the press and somebody who gets you-know-what done,” outgoing Ward 5 DC Council member Kenyan McDuffie told me last week during an extended conversation about his decision to switch his party affiliation from Democrat to independent and run for an at-large seat in the Nov. 8 general election.
Fred Hill, Karim Marshall, Jennifer Galencia Muhammad, Connell Wise, Graham McLaughlin and at-large incumbent Elissa Silverman are also circulating nominating petitions in hopes of qualifying to be on the ballot as independents. Republican Giuseppe Niosi and DC Statehood Green Party member David Schwartzman are already the nominees of their respective parties. Add Council member Anita Bonds to the at-large field, too, as the Democratic Party’s nominee; the conventional thinking is that she is unbeatable for one of the two seats in play this election cycle.
I’m not a conventional thinker, but many have made a case for such an inevitability: “In this hyper-partisan environment, people are going to get their ballot, sit at the kitchen table and circle D, D, D and then say, ‘I’m done,’” said political consultant Chuck Thies.
Who knows, maybe the Democratic Party label won’t be enough to make Bonds invincible after all. Truth be told, we all know unexpected things happen in political campaigns. Further, with nearly 76,000 votes against her out of the total 118,321 in the at-large Democratic primary and 9,743 “under votes” where voters didn’t select any candidate, Bonds is what some might call vulnerable.
Then, there is the complicating factor that general election voters get to choose two candidates in the at-large race. No political party can win more than one of the two at-large seats in this election, according to the home rule charter. Nothing prevents independents from walking away with both seats, however.
Regardless of my perception about Bonds’ electoral viability, she has consistently pulled off convincing general election wins. That may be one reason McDuffie has made clear multiple times he is not running against her. Instead, he seems focused squarely on the other prominent politico in the race: Silverman — the object of his loud-talker, low-performer critique.
Silverman came to the council in 2014 — two years after McDuffie won the special election in Ward 5. During her two terms, she has been a vocal advocate for mostly low-income and working-class residents around affordable housing, public housing, employment training and opportunities, paid family leave and homelessness. She often is praised for conducting rigorous oversight as chair of the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. “I think I have a good, strong story to tell,” she told me.
In her reelection campaign four years ago, Silverman showed impressive electoral strength. “She got 90,589 votes in 2018. That is a base, and that makes her a tough nut to crack,” said Thies.
The perceived leader of the far-left wing of the council, Silverman has loyal and vocal fans. On the other hand, several residents I spoke to, including a few who agree with her public policy positions, describe her as a divisive, confrontational player whose behavior often strains opportunities for collaboration within the legislature.
In this political season, she made more than a few enemies in Ward 3. She opposed the efforts of some Cleveland Park citizens, as advanced by DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson, to preserve their old advisory neighborhood commission boundaries. In the Democratic primary, she used the results of a poll paid for by her campaign, which is funded in part with taxpayer dollars, to persuade three candidates to exit the Ward 3 race and support Matt Frumin in an attempt to ensure Eric Goulet wouldn’t win. Her involvement is something she boasted about during our conversation, hoisting it as an example of her ability to build coalitions.
“A lot of times, it’s her way or the highway,” said one resident who is actively involved in DC politics.
“I will admit to being human. I have emotions,” Silverman told me during a telephone interview about her campaign, whether she perceives McDuffie as a threat, and the growing perception of her as the legislature’s antagonist.
“When somebody does something designed to make [my] life harder, it makes me angry,” she added.
Regardless of her obvious contentious nature, Thies said her supporters do not seem unhappy. “In the past four years Elissa has done nothing to put daylight between her and her base,” he said.
As a signal of her strength, Silverman highlighted the fact that in the 2018 general election, she won handily against Dionne Reeder, a candidate backed by Mayor Muriel Bowser. Silverman prevailed 26.47% to 14.36%, although many observers assert that the mayor did not put the full weight of her political operation behind Reeder, who brought in 49,132 votes.
Unquestionably, McDuffie is the strongest challenger Silverman has faced. She may be the strongest he has yet to face.
Still, “Kenyan can absolutely beat her,” another political operative told me.
Evidence of that possibility is found in the number of people who in past elections have not used both of their at-large votes — whether by choice or out of confusion. In 2018, there were 120,686 under votes in the at-large general election; in 2014 there were 81,621.
“Part of my campaign is going to be to educate voters about the opportunity they have to [select] two candidates,” McDuffie told me. While he will campaign in all eight wards, he explained, he intends to emphasize his “pick-two” message in “parts of the city where [voters] have not used both votes.”
Another vantage of his potential can be found in a recently released poll of 500 likely voters conducted from June 28-30 by the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group on behalf of the Baltimore-Washington Laborers District Council and Unite Here Local 25. In a four-way race that included Bonds, Silverman, McLaughlin and McDuffie, the two incumbents fared best — 47% said they would vote for Bonds, and 35% chose Silverman. Of those surveyed, 27% said they would vote for McDuffie; 11% chose McLaughlin. At least 26% of those polled were undecided.
Interestingly, McDuffie hadn’t entered the race when the poll was conducted; still he came within 8 percentage points of Silverman.
Pollsters said when they provided more information about Silverman, her numbers rose to 46%. Likewise, with more information about McDuffie, his support increased to 33%, with 14% remaining undecided. There was only a 5-percentage-point difference between McDuffie’s and Silverman’s gains. Given the poll’s timing before McDuffie had announced his entry into the race, he obviously has the potential to build greater momentum with an active campaign. In other words, the more people know the tighter the race is likely to get.
Calling himself a “pragmatic progressive,” McDuffie said he wants to continue serving District residents and entered the race because “working on behalf of District residents is my passion and my purpose.” He touted his record: being the first to support various campaign finance and ethics reforms; introducing legislation that “banned the box for employment,” making it illegal to ask certain questions about an individual’s criminal record; and writing and shepherding through passage of comprehensive criminal justice reform as well as a requirement for DC police to use body-worn cameras. McDuffie also advanced the city’s public health approach to community violence, authoring legislation that led to the creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which oversees violence interruption programs.
“Some of that stuff was not popular when I first introduced them,” said McDuffie.
During his council tenure, McDuffie has served as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety. Currently he chairs the Committee on Business and Economic Development. In 2013, his council colleagues elected him chair pro tempore.
He presented his portfolio to District residents during his primary campaign to become the Democratic Party nominee for attorney general. That effort ended abruptly when one of his opponents, Bruce Spiva, filed a challenge with the Elections Board asserting that McDuffie did not meet the statutory qualifications for the office. The three-member board agreed, as did the DC Court of Appeals.
“We started a movement when I was campaigning for attorney general. I have heard from people who believed in that campaign and want me to continue serving,” said McDuffie, who had chosen to run for AG rather than seek another term as the Ward 5 council member.
Silverman has already cast aspersions on that campaign line. She has suggested that the at-large race is nothing more than a consolation prize for McDuffie or some kind of revenge against her.
“There were discussions at the Council about moving emergency legislation to put him back on the ballot in the Attorney General’s race, and it was suggested to me that if I didn’t support that effort he might run for my seat,” Silverman wrote in a recent campaign newsletter.
The claim that McDuffie is running as political retribution just doesn’t make sense. He could have sought payback against any of the other council members, including by running against Mendelson — who made clear that he would not introduce any legislation that would clarify the intention of the AG law during the election cycle.
There are no such questions about McDuffie’s qualifications to run for at-large council member. He said staff at the Elections Board told him definitively that he is eligible to run as an independent for the at-large council seat.
Preemptively, Silverman also has accused McDuffie of sidling up to deep-pocketed donors. “In order to compete with me and other candidates using public financing, he’ll likely amass hundreds of thousands of dollars by getting maxed-out $1,000 checks from real estate developers and other big-money interests,” she speculated in her campaign newsletter.
McDuffie, who was an initial supporter of public campaign financing, is a victim of the Fair Elections Act regulations. He was the first of the AG candidates to qualify for the program. However, when he was removed from that race, that meant he would have to return outstanding funds, which he said the campaign will do upon completing a termination report. The law does not permit a candidate to receive public financing for more than one campaign in the same election cycle.
“I was disappointed when OCF told me I was not eligible to participate in the program for the general election,” McDuffie told me.
Silverman has been amassing her own war chest. Perhaps she is concerned that McDuffie will be able to match in private donations what she has received in part from taxpayers.
The campaign had raised $165,424 as of June 10, according to Silverman’s most recent report to the Office of Campaign Finance; public Fair Elections funds accounted for $131,285 of that amount. She told me that her campaign may have collected another $40,000 to $50,000 in contributions since then. The Fair Elections law authorizes a total payment of up to $373,394.
Accusing her opponents of being puppets for big developers is a standard canard used by Silverman in past campaigns. She also has become adept in challenging her opponents’ qualifying petitions.
“People know I run a vigorous campaign. I run on offense,” said Silverman, who added that she plans to conduct polling in the race so she can use empirical data. While she dismissed the label of progressive with a flippant comment — “I’m not sure there is a political party called the progressive” — she seems ready to perceive an edge based on primary victories of fellow progressives who are on the ballot in November. “In Ward 1, a candidate like me won. In Ward 3 a candidate like me won. In Ward 5 a candidate like me won decisively.
“It shows it will be a competitive race,” she said, adding “I’m going to run on my record. I think the contrast will be clear.”
Actually, none of her compatriots faced primary opponents like McDuffie: a seasoned politician who has a solid legislative record, is liked by residents in many parts of the city, and is coming off a campaign in which many voters believed him well-qualified but wrongly denied an opportunity he deserved.
“I have spent the last 10 years building a bigger tent,” McDuffie said. “I have built bridges across the District of Columbia to get things done. I’m going to be talking about my record. The contrast between me and the other candidates will be clear.”
Get ready for a political slugfest.
jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.
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