Photo by mediaslave

Kenyan McDuffie overwhelmingly won today’s special election to fill the Ward 5 seat on the D.C. Council once held by disgraced former councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.

With all 18 precincts reporting at 9:30 p.m., McDuffie took 44.50 percent of the vote. Second-place finisher Delano Hunter only mustered 20 percent, while Frank Wilds took 14.8 percent. Republican contender Tim Day, the man responsible for the investigation that eventually brought down Thomas, only managed 5.3 percent of the vote.

All told, McDuffie won 10 of the 18 precincts, doing best in the ward’s western-most precincts encompassing Bloomingdale, Eckington and Edgewood, where he lives. He also did well in the precinct encompassing Brookland.

McDuffie’s future colleagues on the D.C. Council were quick to arrive at his victory party, starting with D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown and followed by Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4). Wells was the only member of the council to formally endorse McDuffie.

McDuffie, a former prosecutor with the Justice Department and official in Mayor Vince Gray’s administration, ran for the seat in 2010, coming in third to Thomas and Hunter. During this campaign, he pledged to restore ethics and integrity to a seat that had long lacked both. He attracted the support of both large unions and progressive activists.

The special election—which cost $318,000—offered residents a chance to turn the page on a scandal that came to engulf the ward since Thomas pleaded guilty and resigned his seat in January. It also offered something more practical—the promise of a day-to-day representative on the council. Since Thomas’ resignation, the Ward 5 seat has sat empty, leaving residents without a vote on issue large and small.

The election will be certified on May 30, and McDuffie will be sworn in thereafter.