Photo by Mr. T in DC

Yesterday something happened in D.C. that doesn’t happen often—an incumbent member of the D.C. Council lost to a challenger. It hasn’t happened in over a decade, in fact. With all precincts reporting, independent challenger David Grosso bested Councilmember Michael Brown (I-At Large) 20.80 percent to 15.31 percent, a difference of roughly 18,000 votes, for the seat on the council set aside for non-Democrats.

Grosso certainly had a few advantages—more money, an opponent that was constantly in the news for personal financial problems—but still faced an uphill battle in unseating an incumbent that is generally well-liked. So how did he do it?

A review of the precinct-by-precinct results shows that where Grosso did best—primarily wards 2, 3 and 6—he crushed Brown. In parts of wards 1 and 4, Grosso and Brown traded results, but where Brown came in on top, Grosso wasn’t far behind. And in the areas where Brown fared best, primarily parts of Ward 5 and wards 7 and 8, he wasn’t able to rack up the sorts of margins that would have overcome what Grosso managed where he was strongest.

All told, Grosso won 42 precincts outright. In Precinct 5 in Georgetown, for one, he took 33 percent of the votes to Brown’s six percent. In Precinct 26 in Woodley Park, the margin stood at 36-7, while in Precinct 89 in Eastern Market it jumped to 41-5. In the parts of town where voters had tired of Brown’s persistent problems, they really came out against him, so much so that even small-time contenders like Leon Swain, A.J. Cooper, Mary Brooks Beatty, and Ann Wilcox were able to get more votes than he was.

At the same time, Grosso also took a few of the precincts in portions of Ward 4 west of Rock Creek Park, and either won or remain competitive in parts of wards 1 and 5, including Bloomingdale, Eckington and Brookland.

Brown didn’t win any precincts at all, though he did come in second to Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large)—who was re-elected with 37 percent of the vote—in 67 precincts. But even in those, his margins weren’t as big as Grosso’s had been across town. In Precinct 109 in Randle Highlands, for example, Brown took almost 28 percent of those vote, while Grosso claimed 10 percent. In the Washington Highlands, though, Brown handily defeated Grosso, 22-2. Still, those sorts of magins were fewer and further between than they were for Grosso.

Additionally, it seems that even some voters in Brown’s homebase—Ward 4—had soured on him. According to the Post, he received 4,400 fewer votes there than he did during his first victory in 2008; all told, he got 20,000 fewer votes relative to four years ago.

There’s also another factor that may have played a role in how the election ended up—those voters who only selected one option on the ballot, when they were in fact allowed two. According to the results, there were over 153,000 under-votes out of the over 320,000 votes cast for the two At-Large seats. (Under-voting often happens in races where voters can choose two candidates.)

Finally, there’s the simple issue of money. While Brown raised more than Grosso did, earlier this year he reported that $113,000 of it had been stolen, allegedly by a former campaign aide. (No charges have yet been filed.) Brown’s campaign was thinly staffed and had little presence across the city, while Grosso was able to save much of what he raised until the bitter end; in the closing two weeks, he spent $82,000 to unseat Brown.