Primary Election 2022

“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends,” Joan Didion wrote in her 1967 essay, “Goodbye to All That.” She’s right, of course. It may be harder still, however, to see the beginning of the end, which…

Someone should have warned DC residents at the start of this political season to “fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night,” as Margo Channing did in the movie All About Eve. The District’s primary, or more precisely the…

Ryan Jones, Brian Schwalb and Bruce Spiva — the three candidates vying to become DC’s second elected attorney general — appear to be reading from the playbook developed by DC Council member Kenyan McDuffie prior to suspending his campaign.…

It’s difficult to imagine any mayor’s second term like the one with which Muriel Bowser has grappled. It began in 2019, filled with promise. One year later, it felt like Pandora was once again among us, unleashing all sorts of hellish…

The DC Board of Elections collaborated in the disenfranchisement of thousands of District voters when it upheld a complaint filed by Bruce Spiva that asserted DC Council member Kenyan McDuffie did not meet the statutory qualifications to…

Salah Czapary is telling a story about the time when he, as a member of the DC Metropolitan Police Department, responded to a 911 call at a nail salon where a customer was engaged in a dispute. “The lady was upset that they didn't offer a…

I’ve been around DC politics long enough to know that when a candidate goes negative, whether directly or indirectly, it’s usually because that person’s campaign is having a tough time gaining traction. The aim is to knock the opponent off…

That’s the question many people were initially asking after The Washington Post released poll results that seemed to be a two-step takedown of incumbent Mayor Muriel Bowser. After all, 74% of the 904 people surveyed between Feb. 2 and Feb.…

Ward 5 DC Council member Kenyan McDuffie is in the proverbial political catbird seat. He is the legislature’s chair pro tempore; chair of the powerful Committee on Business and Economic Development, holding sway over significant financial…

At-large DC Council member and newly announced mayoral candidate Robert White is right in asserting that the District government has essentially aged out. “We have been on autopilot for years,” he said during an interview with me last…

At 26, James Butler found himself over his head. The Ohio transplant was running a law firm specializing in criminal and civil litigation with 25 staff members. It had long been a dream of his to work in civil rights and help people. But,…

Patrick Mara seems determined that the DC Republican Party and its members will be part of the local political mix this election cycle. “We’ve cast a wide net. We have a dozen persons interested in running for office,” he told me last week…

Responding last week to a question asked during WAMU’s Politics Hour about her political intentions, Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to indicate definitively whether she will run for a third term: "I usually get into a campaign when I know I…