Mayoral candidates go out with a party

For evidence that the District’s primary is only hours away, look no further than Chevy Chase on Sunday, when Mayor Anthony Williams danced the Electric Slide — quite well, actually — with Linda Cropp.

“I think everybody wished they had his endorsement,” Cropp, the D.C. Council chair and mayoral candidate, said of Williams. “So we’re happy to have it.”

On the last weekend day of campaigning before Tuesday’s primary, candidates in multiple races worked the crowds at both Chevy Chase Day in Ward 3 and Adams Morgan Day in Ward 1 — a convenient conglomeration of D.C. residents in two vote-rich sections of Washington.

“I wanted to have a neighborhood celebration and it just happened to be two days before the primary,” said Louisa Shepard, a Chevy Chase Day organizer. “But that makes it more terrific.”

Ward 4 Council member Adrian Fenty appears in good position to win the Democratic nomination for mayor — and in essence, the election. He is the front-runner, with recent polls showing him ahead of Cropp by 10 or 15 points. Last week he collected the endorsements of the editorials pages of the The Examiner and the Washington Post.

“We’re taking nothing for granted,” Fenty said, repeating his campaign mantra.

Fenty’s supporters did the talking for him.

“We need somebody who’s got some good ideas to keep us going,” said Susan Banta, a Chevy Chase voter. “If we stick with the status quo, I’m afraid we’ll fall back to where we were a few years ago.”

But there was no let-up in Cropp, the Washington leader with three decades of experience under her belt.

“We’re seeing the momentum moving to us as a lot of the undecideds come over to our camp,” she said.

Williams said his recent campaigning on the chairman’s behalf has been effective.

“I think some people are thinking about it more closely and carefully,” the mayor said of the race.

Marie Johns, the former Verizon Washington executive, was the only mayoral candidate to march in the Chevy Chase parade. Despite lagging third in the polls, she said she feels strong going into the campaign’s final days.

“She’s going to bring a CEO mentality to the District,” said Keith Vaughan, a Johns supporter and small business owner. “That’s what I like best. And I don’t like anybody else.”

Also participating in Chevy Chase Day were Kathy Patterson and Vincent Gray, the two candidates to replace Cropp as council chair. The chairman’s race is a dead heat.

Ward 3 is Patterson’s home turf, but Gray, the Ward 7 council member, said he’s received an “incredible” response in upper Northwest and across the District.

“I think they know me better,” Gray said. “They know I’m quite serious of my One City theme.”

Patterson supporter Tim Welsh said he’s found a lot of voters “are just unaware this is such a big day.”

“If they were,” he said, “the race wouldn’t be this close.”

Also too close to call is the race for the council’s at-large seat, between two-term incumbent Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council’s judiciary committee, and lawyer A. Scott Bolden.

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