Brunching last Sunday a few blocks west of D.C.’s awe-inspiring Rock Creek Cemetery and the Old Soldier’s and Airman’s Home, this blogger couldn’t help but take note of signs of this years primary election season.
The hosts’ house sits in Precinct 57, near where Petworth gives way to Brightwood Park, in Ward 4, home to the biggest batch of Democrats who turn out in droves for hotly contested primary elections.
Precinct 57’s is geographically distorted, its boundaries bloated to take in those spacious venerable resting grounds of noteworthy Washingtonians of yore, but the blocks on the District’s grid where the bulk of its registered voters reside are typical of the working to middle class African-American home owners of Ward 4 east of Georgia Ave., NW.
A few of the white faces that are changing the complexion of this part of Ward 4 were out and about late Sunday morning. Not many of those newer neighborhood faces were likely to be as keen observers of their longer-lasting neighbors than our hosts. With years of experience logged in the fields of social services and local media sales – and venturing into interior District neighborhoods during D.C.’s influential 90’s music scene – our hosts seem more attuned to the cultural subtleties when interacting with those longer-term neighbors than some other newer home owners here.
And their report? The mayor’s race hasn’t come up much, but the few comments offered have been pro-D.C. Council Chair Vince Gray; a few have been anti-Mayor Fenty. Driving along the neat blocks of the District grid nearby supported a host’s assertion that the yard signs were “all Vince Gray.” Not one yard passed, in this very admittedly unscientific survey, had a single green Fenty Re-Elect sign out front. It’s worth noting that that Fenty’s fabled “Green Machine” has maybe not knocked on these doors and offered to stick one in the homeowner’s yard.
Remember, when Fenty swept past fellow Ward 4 resident Linda Cropp – then the D.C. Council Chair – in 2006’s Democratic mayoral primary, he carried Precinct 57 by a margin reflective of his victory ward-wide.
Looking back to Fenty’s first impressive bid for D.C. Council offers a more interesting tidbit. In September 2000’s Democratic primary, Precinct 57 gave Fenty one of his widest margins as he toppled veteran Ward 4 Council Member Charlene Drew Jarvis. So, Precinct 57 could once be considered to have once been the locus of Fenty’s geographic base.
Poll numbers may still indicate Fenty’s support remains firm with this neighborhood’s white, gentrifying demographic. Many of these individuals had yet to reside here in his first council race a decade ago and whether they turn out in a primary is still very much up in the air.
Mayor Fenty’s former fans in Precinct 57 might just be waiting for him to knock on their door and personally ask for their votes, as he famously first did so persuasively a decade ago.
