(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

By Rachel Kurzius and Rachel Sadon

After months of rumors, Vincent Gray made it official today: he’s running for his old Ward 7 seat.

“I made a decision. Lots of people have been urging me to do one or another thing … I’m going to run for the Ward 7 seat,” Gray said on the Kojo Nnamdi Show. “Ward 7 is home.”

The former mayor has been mulling a another run for political office since even before the four-year-long investigation into his 2010 campaign ended in December. As the rumor mill intensified, the question turned from “if” to “against who”: At-large Councilmember Vincent Orange or Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander, his successor on the dais and onetime protege.

A now-defunct PAC, organized by Gray’s supporters expressly to gauge his chances, surveyed the city last month and publicly released the results of its poll. It found that he’d lead Alexander by 48 percent to 32 percent in a hypothetical match-up. Another 6 percent went to Ed Potillo and 14 percent said they were unsure, with a 4.4 percent margin of error. Delmar Chesley and Grant Thompson are also running for the Ward 7 seat, though the Higher Ground PAC poll didn’t include them.

In the At-large race, the poll found that Gray would lead the pack at 32 percent, followed by Orange at 20 percent, David Garber at 10 percent, and Robert White at 6 percent.

“If circumstances were different in terms of the amount of time there is on the calendar as well as what I would call the media environment here, Gray might consider a contest against a Vincent Orange—he’s certainly vulnerable,” said longtime Gray supporter and spokesman Chuck Thies. “But in the District, there’s five months to election.”

The Democratic primary is on June 14, and Gray was down to just a few weeks left to decide if he’d enter the contest.

“My consideration was focused on where I could do the greatest good,” Gray said, pointing to his lead in both races in the poll. “Sadly, there is wide dissatisfaction at this stage with [Alexander’s] representation,” especially citing constituent services. He argued that that others would be working to unseat her regardless of his entrance in the race.

Still, rather than having to campaign citywide for the At-large seat, Ward 7 is seen as Gray’s best chance at a comeback. In the 2014 primary, Gray carried 59 percent of the vote in the ward to Muriel Bowser’s 29 percent, and he’s a longtime resident.The PAC poll found that 64 percent view Gray favorably versus 47 percent for Alexander.

“Vince endorsed Yvette when she first ran for Council, and he basically helped her get her start in politics. And like anyone who helped someone get their first job or some type of a start, you assist them in doing it and you expect them to excel,” Thies said of Gray’s opponent. “She’s not really grown on the Council. She has not excelled as a Councilmember and Vince believes that he can do a better job.”

Gray says he has no regrets about endorsing Alexander, though. “She had tremendous promise.” While the former mayor has seen her at community events recently, he said that the two had not discussed his decision to run.

Alexander “is focusing on the work she is doing for the ward and the committee she chairs,” spokeswoman Tiffany E. Browne said ahead of the announcement. “It’s politics, so she’s just focused on continuing on being a legislator.”

According to the latest campaign finance report, Alexander has already raised $69,700—of which she has spent $19,655. Gray will be months behind in building a campaign infrastructure and raising funds. He plans to announce his campaign manager in the coming days, and said that Thies will be the treasurer.

His former campaign manager is characteristically optimistic about Gray’s chances. “I see no barriers whatsoever to Vince’s return. There’s always things that are unpredictable … but I don’t see a single thing that is prohibitive or in any way concerns me,” Thies said.

Still, another challenger, Ed Potillo, has already taken aim at his new high-profile opponent, questioning his motivations. “In 2006, after barely a year as Ward 7 Councilmember, now former Mayor Gray chose to run for higher office and left Ward 7 behind,” Potillo said in a statement. “After months of At-Large speculation in 2015, I doubt his specific commitment to the residents of Ward 7.”

And Alexander is likely to have significant support from the administration. “I’m happy to tell anybody that Vincent Orange has been a great partner with us, so has Yvette Alexander,” Bowser said earlier this week, before Gray announced.

When asked if his decision to run in Ward 7 had anything to do with animus towards Bowser, Gray said, “There is no way I would do this as some way to seek retribution. There’s too much work to be done.”

He did question the way Bowser handled Wal-mart’s decision to back out out its commitment to build two stores in Ward 7, putting a major development at Skyland Twon Center in jeopardy. “People felt blindsided by this, but how does that happen? You’ve got to stay on top of the developer and work with the retailers.” He said that “being able to solve the Skyland problem” would be a top priority.

The former mayor wouldn’t say whether he was planning on another run for the city’s top job in 2018, but he promised that he didn’t view the Ward 7 seat as a stepping stone to the mayoralty.

Gray already has a campaign Twitter account and website for this race anyway—and many eyes will be watching closely.

“Comeback campaigns are not like other campaigns,” Thies said, “in that you only get one chance at a comeback.”