District voters appear to have sent a message via the ballot box to the mayor and council chairman that they’re not happy with the direction the city’s top elected officials are heading. The candidate for an at-large council seat backed by Mayor Vince Gray and council Chairman Kwame Brown came in lowly third place in Tuesday’s special election. With 8,842 votes, Sekou Biddle was about 4,000 votes behind winner Vincent Orange and about 3,000 votes behind runner-up Republican Patrick Mara. On the campaign trail, Orange defined himself as the Democratic choice for voters angry with a series of scandals surrounding Gray and Brown. The former Ward 5 councilman sounded out an early position against an income tax increase proposed by Gray and easily separated himself from Brown as the council chairman’s opponent in last summer’s chairman’s race.
“I focused on the budget and creating jobs,” Orange told The Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “The media did a great job of taking care of all the other issues.”
But the big picture might be story about voters turning against their mayor and council chairman, political observers said.
“The resounding message was that voters didn’t want more of what Gray and the city council represent, which has been controversy and ethics problems,” said community activist Terry Lynch, who has been outspoken against the mayor. “The votes for Orange, Mara, [Bryan] Weaver, and [Josh] Lopez were all votes against the current leadership.”
In those terms, about 34,000 votes were cast against the city’s top political leaders against the 8,842 votes for Biddle. In January, when Biddle was sworn in as the interim at-large councilman he appeared to be the golden pick for winning the seat in April with Gray’s and Brown’s backing. Two federal investigations into Gray’s mayoral campaign and Brown’s push for a “fully loaded” Lincoln Navigator later, and Biddle was left fighting to define himself as independent.
“I wanted people to judge me on what I’ve done and what I will do,” Biddle told The Examiner. “Unfortunately, given the events going on, I was never able to get to that place.”
