jonetta rose barras: Who among DC’s mayoral candidates can help the city fulfill its potential? (Part 1)

A diverse crowd of nearly 300 people squeezed into the auditorium at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on Monday evening; it was a standing-room-only setting at the latest DC mayoral forum, one sponsored by The 51st, The Washington Informer and SpotlightDC. 

Six Democratic candidates participated in this week’s forum: Gary Goodweather, Rini Sampath, Hope Solomon, former at-large DC Councilmembers Vincent Orange and Kenyan McDuffie, and current Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George. 

Earlier this year, nine contenders submitted nominating petitions in the June 16 Democratic primary contest that caught fire after Mayor Muriel Bowser announced her forthcoming retirement. It appears Ernest Johnson remains a candidate, but he did not participate in the forum. Kathy Henderson and Stanley Lawson have thus far been denied ballot access by the DC Board of Elections.

Neither Goodweather, Sampath nor Solomon has held public office in DC — not even as advisory neighborhood commissioners. The local media and some political operatives have helped fertilize the theory that a person is not qualified for elected office unless that person has previously been elected or is currently serving in a political position or was a staffer for someone who met the two former criteria. 

That mythmaking created the presumption, even before the pool of candidates gelled, that McDuffie and Lewis George were the top candidates. However, many voters I interviewed over the past several weeks are still undecided. 

“I’m not feeling any of them right now,” said Sandra Seegars, a Ward 8 civic leader, who was troubled by McDuffie’s multiple switches of his political party membership. She asserted that Lewis George would be “learning on the job.”

Seegars said she considered voting for Orange before learning details about the composition of his campaign organization. “I’m thinking about writing in Anthony Muhammad,” she added.

“I’m probably more interested in Hungary and Budapest than in DC. I am happy with the results there,” said E. Ethelbert Miller, a Ward 4 resident.

“What we lack is a transformative leader,” Miller continued, citing Zohran Mamdani as “a young Muslim who brought excitement to New York City. When I look at DC [mayoral] candidates, I don’t get excited about any of them.”

“I have not made up my mind,” said Bill Lightfoot, a Ward 4 resident and former at-large councilmember who served as chair of mayoral campaign committees for Bowser and Adrian Fenty.

“It may be too soon to tell where the election is going,” Lightfoot said during our recent telephone interview. 

Ballots are scheduled to start hitting mailboxes by May 11, according to the Elections Board website. 

“Lots of people are growing disenchanted with the DC government,” he continued. 

He may be right. 

DC residents are not alone, however. This is the season of political discontent — nationally and internationally. Elections tell the story.

Despite the absence of warm and fuzzy feelings, District residents can’t afford to sit it out. The city’s economy and autonomy are simultaneously at risk. 

While Solomon’s performance at Monday’s forum was considered “underwhelming” by several observers, comments about two other so-called minor candidates — as well as Orange — were more favorable. 

As an elected official, first as Ward 5 representative and later as at-large councilmember, Orange racked up an impressive legislative record: He aggressively fought for a “living wage,” recruited Home Depot and Costco to Ward 5, and through robust oversight forced implementation of DC laws requiring the government to spend a specified percentage of its contracting budget with certified local businesses. 

Still, Lightfoot asserted during our interview that “Goodweather is a wildcard” — not Orange.

Chuck Thies, a longtime political consultant, gave little or no weight to any of the so-called minor candidates. While Orange reportedly quit his job with the DC government to run for mayor and has loaned his campaign as much as $175,000, “he has no chance of winning this race,” offered Thies, noting the previous times Orange has run for mayor and lost.

Those defeats, said Thies, may be attributable to his documented tendency toward self-sabotage by engaging in campaign techniques and contrivances that have cast him as the “P.T. Barnum of DC politics.” 

Thies surmised that Orange’s belief that he can prevail — and his decision to loan the campaign so much money — may stem from a “misunderstanding [of] how ranked choice voting works; he is making a strategic error, a costly error.”

Thies was equally puzzled by Goodweather’s candidacy and called him an “undercard.”

A former Army captain and real estate developer who lives in Dupont Circle, Goodweather was among the first people to enter the mayoral race — announcing his candidacy early last year, well before Bowser said she would not seek a fourth term. He was also the first 2026 mayoral candidate to be certified by the DC Office of Campaign Finance for public financing under the Fair Elections Program, initially building his campaign coffers to over a quarter million dollars. 

“I believe so much in my vision, in my experience, and in creating a city that can be the example for the country by lifting everybody up,” Goodweather told me during our recent conversation. “I do think that if journalists have the time and are actually intellectually curious of what I’m trying to do, then yeah, I can win.”

This is not an endorsement column. However, political lightning, like the real thing, can be unpredictable.

The uncertainty that hangs over the race prompted me to request one-on-one interviews with four of the candidates — Goodweather, Orange, McDuffie and Lewis George. Actually, I first sought an interview with Lewis George in December. Her spokesperson Amanda Gomez had indicated she would “get back” with me. She never did, despite my writing seven different emails seeking to secure that sit-down.

Last week, I sent an email to the campaign’s chair, former Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells. He has yet to reply. 

I spoke with Goodweather, Orange and McDuffie about their visions for the city. Forum discourse is mostly served in small bites: Talk about Bowser’s cut to the child care subsidy program comes without a detailed reference to the birth-to-adult public education mission. The hand-wringing about teen curfews sidesteps discussion of DC’s woefully inadequate child welfare system. General laments about the city’s economy often pass without candidates having to reveal specific reductions they might make to programs or agencies.

The lack of that sufficient information has not gone unnoticed. “You go to the forums, and they are not asking the right questions,” said Miller.

“The candidates have not expressed a vision for the future,” said Lightfoot. “There are no bold or innovative ideas.”

Sampath, director of a cybersecurity company, has said she is running to “fix the basics.” She and her team have touted a new 311 app they created. She has suggested using AI to improve services and stimulate the economy. She has also proposed a new data dashboard to track and make government spending visible.

But few forum moderators have probed specifics: For instance, what basics would Sampath actually fix? What is the price tag? How might the changes affect the quality of life for residents in Ward 7, for example? 

Apparently, a forum is different from a debate — and not in a good way. Seldom are there follow-up questions for candidates. Who is served by such a static model?

To address affordability and economic growth, Goodweather mentioned his plan for free transportation, which isn’t really a new concept. “It is an economic opportunity tool,” he told me in our interview. “We need to be able as a city to connect everybody else throughout all parts of the city, to create opportunity throughout the entire city.” 

The plan would be implemented in stages. Free Metrobuses would be rolled out in the first year. Then Metrorail. It could cost roughly $350 million a year, he said.

“I do want more frequency of rail and bus services. … I’d love different buses, that just may be smaller electric buses that come more often,” continued Goodweather. “I think that this free transportation will connect us in new ways. It will put money back in Washington, DC residents’ pockets. …Those dollars will circulate more in our city.”

Goodweather’s signature vision is the creation of what he has called Capital Corps. “It is a citywide civic organization that provides education, training and career pathways for DC residents. It has a youth track, an adult track, and a returning citizen track. I designed it after my time in the United States military, where leaders are trained, not born,” he explained. There would be eight different branches — including one for education, which would encompass early childhood development and establish new programs at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). 

Capital Corps would be created through a mayoral order issued within the first 100 days, Goodweather said. An initial cohort of 500 residents would be enrolled in a newly established service academy at UDC. “Ultimately, I want the [university] to be a world-class academic institution. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be. We have all of this expertise, intellectual capital, everything we possibly could want here in our city.”

Goodweather said he would also ask the DC Council to approve legislation “to ensure that no mayor, including myself, ever serves more than two terms.”

“This is mission-driven, this is service, and we need to start getting experts in our local government, because ultimately, the best way that I’m going to keep our city safe and keep it from federal interference … is to create a city that is so well managed, does so well for its residents, that the federal government has no excuse to interfere in our rights, and ultimately, giving us full representation will be undeniable,” added Goodweather.

The DMV New Liberals, a center-left grassroots organization, ranked Goodweather and Sampath as its second and third choices, respectively, with McDuffie as their first selection. Orange has yet to receive any consequential endorsements.

“It’s up to the media to push that out and let people be heard,” Orange said, decrying the lack of attention to his candidacy while touting his accomplishments. “How can a person with [my] record not be allowed to stand up and talk to folks that don’t have a record?

During his closing statement at Monday’s forum, he asserted he was the only person with a record to stand on. Except, the mayor isn’t a legislator. The mayor is the chief executive, charged with managing a $22 billion public corporation with more than 32,000 employees and dozens of agencies, to say nothing of affiliates like Events DC.

Still, it’s true that Orange knows government and has a plan. He told me that “public safety is at the top of the list. We want to send out the message — very strong, very clear, very forceful — that crime will not be tolerated.”

He also said he intends to build “1,000 units of housing” that will be 600 square feet in size and cost about $75,000. Those would serve as workforce housing as well as housing for recent college graduates and senior citizens. He said local certified businesses would be recruited to build those units.

Orange said in his administration tuition at UDC would be free. “That probably will cost about $25 million.” Currently, young people receive DC Tuition Assistance Grants to attend state schools outside the city. “I want to sweeten the pie and give [them] maybe $5,000 more to stay in DC; we need our young people here. We have to start looking at our future, and our future is with them.”

He also plans to create a youth apprenticeship program for high school seniors in every government agency. “If you are interested in being an accountant, then I’m going to have a program for you at the Office of Tax and Revenue. If you’re interested in sports management, Events DC is your location,” explained Orange. 

He said he would not kill any capital program that is already “in the pipeline,” citing projects like redevelopment around Capital One Arena and the Commanders football stadium. He does want to ensure maximum opportunities for certified business enterprises.

“It’s our job to make sure that we do the best possible to make those things happen. And then make sure with all those dollars that are going to be spent, that we are in a position to have those dollars circulate in the District of Columbia,” said Orange.

That all sounds good. But can Orange or Sampath or Goodweather change the political winds that seem directed toward a win for McDuffie or Lewis George? To mix metaphors, has the die been cast?

“Goodweather could be a factor with ranked choice voting,” said Lightfoot. 

Except, more than a few people told me they are voting for only one candidate. In other words, don’t expect bullet voting to die the natural death some have predicted.

Next week: Part 2 will examine the race between the perceived top two candidates, Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.