It’s been a good night for incumbents in the D.C. local races.
As widely predicted, incumbent Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser coasted to victory, winning about 76 percent of the vote. Bowser is the first D.C. mayor to win a second term since 2002, and the first woman mayor ever to be reelected in the history of the city.
In the year’s most closely watched local race, incumbent At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman easily held off a challenge from small business owner Dionne Reeder, who had Bowser’s support. At final tally, Silverman has 26.6 percent of the vote to Reeder’s 14.4 percent. Wards 7 and 8 showed up stronger for Reeder, but Silverman led in all other wards.
As expected, the Democratic incumbents swept in the D.C. Council races by wide margins. Phil Mendelson won his race for Council Chairman against Libertarian Ethan Bishop-Henchman. Anita Bonds will keep her seat as one of the Democratic At-Large councilmembers (only two of the four At-Large seats can be claimed by the majority party, which made the contest primarily one for the non-Democratic councilmember), Brianne Nadeau won in Ward 1, Mary Cheh in Ward 3, Kenyan McDuffie in Ward 5, and Charles Allen in Ward 6.
None of the Democratic incumbent candidates faced a credible threat to reelection.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who has served as a non-voting delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives since 1991, easily won reelection in her race, with 87 percent of the vote. Michael Brown handily won reelection as the District’s shadow Senator, and Franklin Garcia faced no competition for his reelection bid as D.C.’s shadow representative in the U.S. House.
In the State Board of Education races, Emily Gasoi took Ward 1 in an open race, incumbent Ruth Wattenberg took Ward 3, Zachary Parker took Ward 5 in an open race, and Jessica Sutter bumped incumbent Joe Weedon to win Ward 6.
Karl Racine, the District’s first elected attorney general, garnered the most votes of anyone on the D.C. ballot, with 196,766 votes and nearly 93 percent of the vote in his race.
This post has been updated.
Natalie Delgadillo