After nine years, Dupont Circle’s annual Groundhog Day tradition is well established. Potomac Phil, the taxidermied groundhog “brother” of Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil, emerges before an early morning crowd at the circle’s fountain and determines both when spring-like weather will arrive and, in an only-in-D.C. twist, whether political gridlock will continue.

But this Sunday, as over a hundred onlookers assembled to learn whether Phil would see his shadow, there was another pall cast over the event: the political ambitions of former Ward 2 D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans, the man who had announced Phil’s yearly forecasts since 2012.

“He either slept in or grew some self-awareness,” Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission Chairman Daniel Warwick says.

Evans resigned from the D.C. Council last month, just as his colleagues were set to expel him for violating ethics rules and putting private clients before the public interest. The D.C. Board of Elections scheduled a special election to fill the Ward 2 seat. Not two weeks later, in defiance of his critics, the longtime lawmaker filed to run both in that special election and the primary, prompting unanimous council condemnation once more.

Yet even in his absence on Sunday, Evans was a hot topic of conversation. Several attendees could be overheard grousing about his actions among themselves, unprompted by a reporter. Potomac Phil may not have predicted Evans’ future, but many of his detractors speculated on the consequences of his late-career political audacity—including their gnawing worry that it might pay off.

Groundhog Day in Dupont is a veritable who’s who of Ward 2 civic life. Many of the attendees wear fancy coats and top hats, including Aaron DeNu, who organizes the event as president of the community nonprofit Dupont Festival.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson assumed the role Evans has traditionally played at the event—that of the groundhog whisperer. After a dramatic huddle around the taxidermy, DeNu unfurled a scroll from which Mendelson read the bad news: “Potomac Phil saw his shadow,” he announced to massive groans from the crowd, “so six more weeks of winter and—oh, there’s more—six more months of political gridlock!”

But this year, amid chants of “In Phil We Trust!,” accordionist Silvia Eberly’s rendition of “The Potomac Phil Polka,” and a Groundhog Day blessing from a local rabbi, there was some Evans-related political theater.

Clearly visible at the edge of the crowd, local activists John Capozzi and Brendan Freehart stood behind a massive gray poster with the words “SACK JACK” next to a photo of Evans. The slogan is also the name of their political group, which has been trying to oust the former councilmember from office since 2018.

“We’re gonna make sure we’re at every event, if possible,” Capozzi said, adding that he wants to make sure every voter is aware of the ethics scandal that prompted Evans’ resignation.

In June, Evans faces a crowded primary and special election: with six other primary hopefuls and an additional Republican challenger. Many of the candidates were at the Groundhog Day celebrations. (DeNu says he invited all of the candidates for the job, including Evans, to attend on Sunday.)

Some of the voters in attendance on Sunday expressed worry about how many people remain in the race, now that Evans has jumped back in.

Jason Balmuth, who said he lives around the corner from the former councilmember in Georgetown, described his decision to run again as “batshit crazy.” But Balmuth also said he was “scared the vote’s going to get fractured and [Evans] could slip in again.”

Stephanie Maltz, a former Dupont Circle advisory neighborhood commissioner now living in Chevy Chase, agreed. “I could totally see him winning,” she said. “He has the most name recognition and there’s so many people in the race. It’s going to be hard for somebody to stand out.”

Back in November, when a majority of the D.C. Council was already calling on Evans to resign, a Washington Post poll found that most of the residents asked about Evans didn’t know enough about him to have an opinion. But when they learned about his conduct, more than 70 percent of the respondents disapproved of his conduct.

Melinda Ojermark, a Foggy Bottom resident who happened to be walking through the circle as the groundhog event wrapped up, isn’t quite convinced Evans is a shoo-in when Ward 2 heads to the polls. She called him “a typical overconfident politician who also is in denial” as he launches another candidacy.

Evans didn’t respond to requests for comment about his candidacy—or why he’d skipped an event where he’d long been a fixture.