D.C.’s 2018 local elections are finally finished.

Frazier O’Leary, the union-backed (and George Pelecanos-endorsed) candidate, won a special election to represent Ward 4 on the Board of Education on Tuesday.

O’Leary took a decisive 47 percent of the vote, beating out three other candidates. Rhonda Henderson was Ward 4 Councilmember’s Brandon Todd pick and she was also supported by Democrats for Education Reform, a pro-charter school PAC, but she nonetheless came in more than 10 percentage points behind, taking 37 percent of the vote. The other two candidates in the race, Elani Lawrence and Ryan Tauriainen, garnered 11 and 5 percent respectively.

The previous Ward 4 representative, Lannette Woodruff, resigned in July. But with little time in the electoral calendar to gather signatures to get on the ballot, the Board of Elections set the race for a month after the general election. Nearly 5,000 people voted–almost 8 percent of registered voters in the ward.

The ward-level election drew some big-name support, despite the relatively small amount of power afforded to the position (D.C.’s school system is mostly controlled by the mayor). Local literary royalty George Pelecanos endorsed O’Leary—a personal friend—in the race. Pelecanos even included a character named after O’Leary in his latest novel, The Man Who Came Uptown. Todd, meanwhile, threw his support—and allegedly, his constituent email list, which has drawn scrutiny—behind Henderson.

O’Leary began his teaching career in 1971, and retired just last year from his post as an English teacher at Cardozo Education Campus. He told DCist in November that one of his big goals is to establish mentorship for new teachers coming into the District in order to lower the incredibly high teacher turnover rate. “One of the reasons we have such a high turnover rate is because we have no mentors for [new teachers] when they start teaching. You need years of practice to be a really good teacher, and mentors will be a big help in easing the journey,” O’Leary says. He is also critical of the new star-rating system for schools that started this month, and of heavy emphasis on standardized tests to judge teacher performance.