What a night, eh Washington? If you’re like us, you were up late listening to Kojo and Jonetta break down the election results as they came in on WAMU. Our favorite moment of the evening came just before 10 p.m., when Mayor Williams told co-host Jonetta Rose Barras she was crazy to suggest that anyone believed he had waited too long to decide if he would seek a third term. For the record Jonetta — you ain’t the crazy one.
But now, on to the election results!
Mayor: By now you’ve no doubt heard, the winner of D.C.’s Democratic Mayoral primary, and by tradition the shoo-in future mayor of D.C., will be Adrian Fenty, as just about everyone had predicted. The only surprise in the result is how thoroughly Fenty managed to hand second place finisher Linda Cropp her hat — winning by about 57 percent to Cropp’s 31 percent, a whopping 26 point margin, means that Fenty has been handed a clear-cut mandate. A result like this likely means the new D.C. City Council won’t be able to give Fenty much of a hard time in the beginning of his term, unlike what happened to Mayor Williams during his first term. Instead, we’d predict the Council will be forced to get in line behind the new mayor’s agenda. In case you’re curious, Marie Johns came in third with 8 percent of the vote, and Vincent Orange carried 3 percent to take 4th place.
Council Chair: Here again, not a huge surprise to find out that Vincent Gray overcame his opponent, Council veteran Kathy Patterson, after he successfully painted Patterson as less likely to be able to be a consensus-builder during the campaign. But Gray too won by a much larger margin than expected, 58 to 42, in what had been predicted to be a close race. This result means that Patterson will not be representing District citizens for the first time in 12 years — had she won, both she and Gray would have served on the council for the coming term, as he would have kept his Ward 7 seat.
City Council: In Ward 1, it’s hardly worth mentioning that Jim Graham looks set to serve another term, having had no serious challenger to his seat. Over in the crowded, often chaotic Ward 3 race, as we predicted, Mary Cheh took the seat, with 44 percent of votes cast. No surprises either in Ward 5, where Harry “Tommy” Thomas Jr. took in 39 percent of the vote to claim the council seat, and it’s the same story in Ward 6, where Tommy Wells coasted in with a 67 percent victory. And in the only race where DCist predicted an upset, we see that were seriously wrong now that Phil Mendelson has been asked to keep his At-Large seat by a huge, 28 point margin over challenger A. Scott Bolden. We’re sure sorry we doubted you, Phil.
U.S. Congress: It’s no surprise to find that our crusading Delegate Eleanor Holmes-Norton will stick around for a ninth term, as she didn’t face a serious challenger. We were way off, however, in predicting a win for Phillip Pannell in the Shadow Senator race, as Michael D. Brown took the symbolic seat handily, though we managed to get the Shadow U.S. Representative spot, won easily by Mike Panetta, correct.
So, what do you think about the election results? Have at it in the comments.
Briefly Noted: 12 people injured in Metrobus accident … New sculptures of Washington unveiled at Mt. Vernon … UVa student dies of bacterial meningitis … Agitated passenger on flight to Dulles restrained.
This Day in DCist: In 2005 we lamented a lack of quickie lube options in the city and interviewed Mike Doughty. In 2004 we alerterd you to some pandas for sale, and speculated about a D.C. version of MTV’s The Real World.
Photo by Flickr user hey-helen.
