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Republican primary. Of course, Moten’s a Republican in a ward that’s not. (He only needed 61 votes to win.) He has to find a way to convince enough Democrats that may not like Alexander that he’s worth voting for. At the same time, he’ll have to fend off attacks from Alexander claiming that, well, he’s a Republican. Brand matters, after all. (In a year that President Obama will be up for re-election, no less.) Additionally, he’s still under a cloud for scandals related to city funds that were directed to Peaceaholics and a group home it started. ßStill, this will be the most entertaining race to watch in November.
Divided We Fall
Alexander’s victory again brings up an issue that has bedeviled challengers for as long as democracy has existed—dividing up the vote against an incumbent. While the division of votes was most pronounced in Ward 7, it may also have played a significant role in the At-Large contest. Supporters of Biddle grumbled on election night that fellow challenger Peter Shapiro might have cost Biddle the win by peeling off progressive voters and helping Orange attack Biddle on the campaign trail. There might be some truth to that—Shapiro took 30 percent of the vote in Ward 3, or some 1,300 votes. Had he dropped out of the race, at least some of those could have gone to Biddle. With 543 votes separating Biddle and Orange, every vote counts. Of course, challenger E. Gail Anderson Holness took some votes out of Orange’s base east of the river, so she might cancel out what Shapiro took from Biddle. And as Shapiro supporters noted, Biddle himself was something of a spoiler in last year’s special election, potentially costing Patrick Mara votes against Orange. Avoiding the spoiler effect seems to have worked in one case, though. In Ward 5, which faces a special election on May 15, ANC Commissioner John Salatti dropped out of the race early on. The reason? He was concerned that he and Kenyan McDuffie would split the progressive vote in the ward, allowing frontrunner Delano Hunter to easily win election to the council. Martin Austermuhle is the Editor-in-Chief of DCist.com and a freelance writer. He lives in Petworth. H
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