Three years ago, Isaac Smith was working to preserve a Confederate monument with an avowed white supremacist who would later go on to organize the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Now, he’s running for an Advisory Neighborhood Commission seat in D.C.’s majority-Black Ward 8.

November’s election marks a debut into D.C. local politics for the 24-year-old, who made headlines three years ago for his proximity to the alt-right movement — a past that Smith says does not reflect his ideologies or how he plans to serve Ward 8 if elected.

“I have a very long and very public history, not only of rejecting racist politics and rejecting white supremacy, but actually going out of my way to include people who do not belong to traditional Republican demographics in the party,” Smith says. “And I’ve advocated for that inclusion very vocally.”

But even as Smith attempts to distance himself from his past links to white supremacist figures, he shares a home with a D.C. resident who publicly supports the Proud Boys — a classified hate group of self-described “western chauvinists,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

His housemate, Suzzanne Monk, tells DCist that she is friends with the Proud Boys’ chairman, Enrique Tarrio, and says “they’re a wonderful group of young men who have done some amazing things and they’re being completely slandered over some ridiculous white supremacy politics.”

Monk isn’t formally involved with Smith’s campaign but she has canvassed for him and vocally supported his candidacy on the Ward 8 Facebook page. She regularly posts inflammatory political content on her own page, and says she has been banned from the social media site multiple times this year (most recently for her support of the Proud Boys).

Monk has a Facebook Live show, Trump Talk US, and Smith has appeared on the show to discuss his ANC candidacy. Smith also supports President Donald Trump, in sharp contrast with the majority of Ward 8 voters and the city of D.C.

Smith is running for the ANC seat representing Anacostia, Fairlawn, Sheridan, and Hillsdale, and says that his political affiliations and national politics rarely come up in the conversations he has with his neighbors. Instead, he tells DCist that the community stands with him around shared concerns like safety — leading him to be “cautiously optimistic” about his chances to claim the seat.

“I’m getting a very positive response [to my candidacy],” Smith says. “People have been overwhelmingly friendly to me. I think that win, lose, or draw, people will be shocked at how many votes I get.”

But some Ward 8 community members and Smith’s opponents have doubts about his sincerity in disavowing white supremacist ideologies.

Some of his competitors have expressed concern about Smith from the start of the race.

Fellow candidate Robin McKinney tried to have Smith tossed off the ballot in August, claiming the signatures from voters on his petition to run were invalid. The Board of Elections determined that Smith still had enough valid signatures to run, but his opponents have other reservations about his candidacy.

“It is rather telling that someone with his resume and his affiliation, could even find themselves on a ballot in Ward 8,” says Aiyi’nah Ford, who is also running for the seat. “It sends a very bold message to residents that the climate here is changing. Not only are individuals interested in living here and colonizing our space, but they want to … make decisions in a community that they’re not even culturally competent to engage.”

Kristina Leszczak, Anacostia resident and U.S. diplomat, is also running against Smith. “I would just emphasize that no one who represents 8A06 should have it within their mindset or their agenda to be divisive,” she tells DCist.

And it’s not just his opponents who have expressed concerns about Smith’s connections and current political beliefs.

Anacostia resident and former ANC 8A05 Commissioner Charles Wilson says he lives on the same block as Smith and has seen him campaigning in the community. Wilson, the founder of the Historic Anacostia Block Association, suspects that residents may not know his background or stances on national politics.

“I would venture to say most residents don’t know who he is or who he stands for,” Wilson says. “[If] they found out, I’m almost confident he’s not going to get a lot of votes. The people who live in this neighborhood care about each other and the future of the neighborhood, and we want somebody who is going to represent us, and all of us, equally, and be a good representation of the neighborhood.”

Smith’s campaign has also drawn criticism from Black Lives Matter DC — an organization that frequently protests against racial injustice and police brutality.

“He has a nefarious agenda … [and is] intentionally misleading folks about his identity and political plans,” says April Goggans, an organizer with Black Lives Matter D.C who lives in Anacostia. “Any possibility of him being elected is an absolute affront to the history and current realities of our single-member district.”

Smith tells DCist that he’s “happy to sit down” with the organization to discuss policing and police accountability, adding that he’s willing to “talk to anybody.”

“If Black Lives Matter says ‘Isaac, we want to work with you, this is what we can work on,’ I’m happy to sit down and talk about police protocols, I’m happy to talk about making the police force more accountable,” Smith says. “I’ll talk to anybody.”

A Charlottesville native who moved to Anacostia from North Carolina in 2019, Smith says he’s running to solve issues that he’s heard many of his neighbors — regardless of political affiliation — voice concern about, including vacant buildings, taxes, and community safety.

“I hope to make Ward 8 in many ways the leading ward in the District of Columbia,” Smith says, adding that he’s seen the quality of life decline “very rapidly” during the pandemic. “I’m running because I have watched businesses close … because people are talking about not being able to pay their rent, that they’re scared that when the moratorium comes up, that they’re going to be evicted. … And these are things that I want to help improve.”

But Smith’s first foray into the political limelight had little to do with the financial health of small businesses or housing affordability.

In 2017, he teamed up with white supremacist Jason Kessler in Charlottesville to fight against calls to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. The pair also shared a mutual disapproval of Charlottesville Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy (who had called for the statue’s removal) and supported the gubernatorial campaign of Corey A. Stewart, who described himself as “Trump before Trump” and was beloved by white nationalists.

But Smith says he backed away from Kessler in May 2017 (eventually splitting with him completely) after Kessler grew increasingly radical and invited white supremacists to a rally in what was then known as Lee Park. Smith is also gay — an identity that he felt was not welcome in the crowd of white supremacists that Kessler was leading. Kessler later went on to organize the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, where a man drove his car through a crowd, killing one person and injuring 19 others.

“I met Jason Kessler when I was 20 years old. And at that point, [I was] brand new to politics and very naïve,” Smith tells DCist. “As he got more radical and moved in that direction towards those racial politics, I said, ‘I can’t follow you down this path. That’s not what I believe in.’ ”

Smith says he spent the years after his professional and personal split with Kessler “rejecting white supremacy” through different political advocacy events with GOP figures in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. A 2018 profile in the Washington Post described Smith’s efforts to distance himself.

While Smith emphasized that the ANC is a nonpartisan board, underscoring the idea that his campaign has separated itself from presidential and party politics, some of his actions appear to suggest differently.

In mid-September, he hosted an event at a D.C. restaurant where a pro-Trump pop performer sang an altered version of the “YMCA,” with the acronym “MAGA.” The event was livestreamed on Twitter by Red Hat Chat, a conservative podcast.

According to Smith, the event was jointly organized as a fundraiser for his campaign and as a promotional stunt for the performer, Ricky Rebel. In his words, Smith is “not one to slam the door in people’s faces” and was happy to welcome Rebel’s support of his campaign to improve Ward 8.

He also recently appeared on Monk’s Facebook Live show, Trump Talk US, seated in front of walls adorned with Trump campaign decor.

At one point in the discussion about his race for ANC, Smith targeted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been a fierce opponent of the president and implied he would make an offensive comment about her were he not running for office.

“Now I’m going to pick on the mayor because I never miss an opportunity… I’m not going to call her any names [because] I’m running for office, I have to be a good boy now,” Smith says. “If I repeated what my barber said about her, I would be probably permanently banned from social media. It’s OK, he’s Black. Zuckerberg enforces different rules.”

Smith tells DCist that he didn’t call Bowser names to avoid being “petty.”

“Smith’s public comments showed utter contempt for the very people he would need to work with to be able to effectively advocate for our neighborhood,” says Ward 8 ANC Commissioner Hanna Baker. She adds, “There’s a fundamental divide between a difference in policy and a disdain for the people who make them.”

Smith is running for public office in a ward struggling against systemic inequality in health, education, and economic opportunity. Ward 8 is a majority-Black part of a city that has been steadily losing Black residents as home prices rise — and some fear that these areas are the next frontier for gentrification and displacement. Residents and local leaders have long advocated for more grocery stores in the ward (a large percentage of which is considered a food desert), and increased access to medical care. Meanwhile, Ward 8 has been hardest hit during the pandemic, with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the District, reflecting ongoing health disparities caused by systemic racism.

Amid the pandemic and frequent protests against police brutality, Ward 8 is also grieving tragedies from this summer and continuing to work with community-based violence interruption solutions. Eleven-year-old Davon McNeal was shot and killed at a neighborhood party in Anacostia on the Fourth of July, and Deon Kay, an 18-year-old resident, was shot and killed by police in the Congress Heights neighborhood in September.

In lieu of city resources and funding, residents and local leaders often engage in their own community support initiatives— from mutual aid networks to community gardens.

While ANC commissioners do not hold legislative power to effect change on these fronts, they do have influence: Commissioners make recommendations to city agencies on neighborhood zoning, education, and safety.

Smith says he’s received friendly responses through his door-to-door campaigning and remains confident in his ability to build trust with local residents, despite ideological differences on a national scale.

“I’m running in this race to promote the interest of Anacostia,” Smith says. “My position here is that I’m pro-Anacostia. And I’ll you know, I’ll work with Trump, I’ll work with Biden, I’ll work with Kanye West. Being here, and listening to people and responding to people, that’s what builds trust. What doesn’t build trust is lying to people about what you’ve done in your past, who you’ve voted for, or anything else.”