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Divide & Conquer
How Vincent Orange Will Win Another Term
I
n only a matter of weeks, D.C. voters head to the polls for the April 3 primary. If you live in ward 2, 4, 7 or 8, you’ll be voting for a councilmember. If you don’t, you’ll be voting in a closely watched and
by Martin Austermuhle – and they did so over Orange. Not one to give up, Orange ran for the seat, and last April defeated Biddle for it. Now Biddle wants it back, along with former Prince George’s County Commissioner Peter Shapiro and Ward 1 ANC commissioner and pastor E. Gail Anderson Holness.
The Polls
Councilmember Vincent Orange.
potentially competitive race for an At-Large seat on the D.C. Council currently held by Councilmember Vincent Orange. There’s a certain amount of drama in the At-large race. In January 2011, after D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown vacated the seat, the D.C. Democratic State Committee chose former State Board of Education member Sekou Biddle to hold the seat until the Special Election 40 H HillRag | March 2012
Where does the race stand? Fortunately, we have two February polls to help us assess that. According to a telephone poll done by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, only 30 percent of likely D.C. voters side with Orange, while 48 percent would vote for someone else and 22 percent are undecided. That’s big news, at least if you’re challenging Orange. Of course, Orange’s internal polling says different. According to numbers commissioned by his campaign, Orange leads all challengers with 46 percent of the vote, with Biddle coming in second at 15 percent and Shapiro third at nine percent. What accounts for the difference? The types of people polled. The poll showing Orange with low approval and at the mercy of a challenger tested all likely voters, including Republicans, Statehood Greens and independents that won’t vote in his race. Conversely,
Orange’s poll only surveyed likely Democratic voters, giving a more accurate picture of where the incumbent stands relative to his challengers. One thing that the polls coincide on is obvious enough: if Orange is pitted against more than one contender, he wins. It happened in last year’s special election in which he narrowly defeated Patrick Mara, ostensibly because Biddle, Bryan Weaver and Josh Lopez peeled off enough votes that Mara contended could have been his. At this rate, this April will be a repeat of last April unless either Biddle or Shapiro drop out.
Will Biddle or Shapiro Have to Go?
Sekou Biddle
real run at Orange on ethics, economic development and job creation. Moreover, Biddle is just too compromised to win over skeptical fence-sitters – it was only last year that he received the endorsements and financial backing from Mayor Vince Gray, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown, former Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.
But who should be the one to drop out – if either – is a thorny question amongst their supporters. For Biddle’s proponents, the former interim councilmember has citywide recognition and a broad base of supporters, as measured by the number of small contributions his campaign has received. And despite coming in third in last year’s special election, he did show more broadbased appeal than Orange. To Biddle’s people, Shapiro is simply an unknown candidate who hasn’t been in the District long enough and doesn’t have the time to get his name out to enough voters. For Shapiro’s fans, though, he’s the real deal – a true progressive who has governed (albeit in Prince George’s County) and can take a Peter Shapiro