Vincent Gray awoke midmorning Wednesday to the reality that he will be the next D.C. Council chairman, the second most powerful elected official in the District and the statutory successor to the mayor’s office.

The primary election Tuesday wasn’t close, as virtually every political observer and pollster predicted. Gray, the first-term Ward 7 council member who ran on a platform of “One City,” won a decisive 57 percent to 42 percent victory over three-term Ward 3 Council Member Kathy Patterson.