A large and partisan crowd stayed for the rowdy candidate forum.

Mayor Adrian Fenty may have grabbed the Washington Post’s endorsement last week, but he couldn’t nail down a straw poll victory in his own home ward last night.

On a night of barbed exchanges between the candidates, D.C. Council Chair Vince Gray won the Ward 4 straw poll with 58 percent of the votes — short of the 60 percent needed for an official endorsement, but enough to embarrass Fenty on his own turf. While Gray may have won the largely symbolic vote, none of the candidates were able to claim victory in a hectic and aggressive candidate forum, notable only for the amount of times the moderators had to appeal for decorum from the partisan audience.

Ward 4 has turned into a battleground between Fenty and Gray. Both have campaign headquarters a few miles apart on Georgia Avenue. Fenty’s career as an elected official began here, and Gray obviously understands the political and symbolic value of taking on a well-funded incumbent on his home turf. Such were the stakes outside of the St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church on 16th Street NW, where candidate signs took over all available real estate, campaign workers handed out stickers and flyers, and supporters for Fenty and Gray alternatively yelled “Four more years!” and “No more years!” at each other.