Photo by jagosaurus

With just over a week until Election Day, a new poll finds Interim Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At Large) leading all contenders in the fight for an At-Large seat on the D.C. Council. Two of her competitors are running dead even, and a third has attracted enough support to split the vote and potentially allow Bonds a win.

According to a poll conducted last week and made available to DCist, 19 percent of respondents say they will vote for Bonds, while three-time council candidate Patrick Mara, running as a Republican, and former reporter Elissa Silverman each have 13 percent of the vote. Ward 3 ANC commissioner Matthew Frumin attracted eight percent, while social activist Perry Redd and defense attorney Paul Zukerberg each claimed two percent. A full 43 percent of respondents say they remained undecided.

Bonds is drawing her support largely from minority voters, leading all contenders in support from Hispanic (34 percent) and African-American (28 percent) voters. She’s doing best in Ward 7 (38 percent), while also claiming a quarter of respondents in wards 4 and 5. Mara and Silverman, on the other hand, are strongest among white voters; Mara performed best in wards 2 and 3 (33 and 25 percent, respectively), while Silverman claimed 25 percent of respondents in Ward 1 and 20 percent in Ward 6, where she lives. Frumin’s highest showing was in Ward 3, where he lives—he received 15 percent of support.

Not surprisingly, D.C. Republicans are pulling for Mara—61 percent polled said they would vote for him, along with eight percent of Democrats and 22 percent of independents. Bonds showed strongest support among Democrats (20 percent), and second among independents (19 percent). Still, many Democrats remain undecided—45 percent haven’t chosen sides yet. (Bonds, Silverman, Frumin, and Zukerberg are running as Democrats; Redd is a Statehood Green.)

The race remains highly unsettled, though—the highest proportion of undecided voters were in wards 5 and 8 (51 and 61 percent, respectively), areas where Bonds needs to do well to win next Tuesday. The proportion of undecideds was lowest in Ward 2 (29 percent) and Ward 1 (30 percent).

Even more pressing is the matter of vote-splitting, though. Much like occurred in last year’s April At-Large primary and the April 2011 Special Election, multiple candidates vying for many of the same voters stand the risk of dividing up what votes are available. Mara recently implored voters in Chevy Chase not to allow this to happen; in 2011, he narrowly lost to Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large) in a similarly crowded field.

There are some obvious caveats, though. The poll of 1,621 registered voters was conducted via traditional landline, skewing towards an older demographic—67 percent of respondents were 46 or older.

More importantly, though, it did not include the name of former councilmember Michael Brown, who dropped out of the race recently but whose name remains on the ballot. In past elections he has polled well in wards 5, 7 and 8; the D.C. Board of Elections is currently exploring legal options in a scenario where Brown wins the race despite having indicated that he’s not fighting for it. The large number of undecided voters in wards 5, 7 and 8 hint that voters may not know who Bonds is, for one.

Finally, polling special elections is tricky business—traditional turnout models don’t often apply, and a Clarus poll ahead of the 2011 Special Election gave Mara significantly less support than he ended up getting on Election Day that year. (A source with knowledge of a private poll says that it found Mara in the lead and Brown and Bonds fighting for second place.) Additionally, the last poll done by this firm—North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling—showed Councilmember David Grosso (I-At Large) trailing Brown in last year’s general election 21 to 26; Grosso ended up winning with 20 percent of the vote to Brown’s 14 percent.

The questions on the upcoming Special Election were included in a broader poll on drug policy conducted by Public Policy Polling and paid for by Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, which has backed drug decriminalization and legalization measures in a number of states. DCist was given access to the full poll, with the results on the local election to be published today and the larger poll on drug policy on Wednesday.

If you want to hear the candidates debate, the Black Cat is hosting a forum this evening at 7 p.m. Early voting continues through April 20 in the Old Council Chambers at One Judiciary Square; tomorrow is the only day voting won’t take place.