Sunday being a cool and slightly overcast day, I figured it was the perfect time to renovate the yard. Armed with shovels and hoes, rakes and mulch, I tended soil and pruned branches all afternoon at the corner of 15th and Swann. The streets were busy, and people were chatty.
A sweet, older woman walking her Pug stopped to admire the shrubbery.
“Do you do yard work?” she asked. “Mine could use some help.”
“Only where I live,” I responded. To myself I said: “Until they quit paying me to write.”
Next came a couple, walking a stroller and a French Bulldog. The dad inquired about our dwarf Japanese maple. Then I flipped the box.
“Are you neighbors?” I asked. They were.
“Are you registered to vote?” I asked. I explained there was a city council election April 3, and I had decided to take a personal poll of passersby.
“Nope,” the guy said. “We just moved into the city.”
I continued my very random survey as afternoon became early evening. What I discovered on the street matched what I had been hearing from candidates and political operatives. Washington’s recent residents have not engaged local politics let alone the coming city council election, one week away.
“There’s a wealth of anti-incumbency sentiment out there,” says a veteran political operative, “but I don’t think you’ll see it in this race. The newcomers aren’t engaged yet.”
What a pity.
My place is in Ward 2, ground zero in the city’s headlong gentrification. Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, Shaw and parts of downtown have increased by 16 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Joy Phillips, who handles such stats for the Office of Planning. Most are 20 to 34 years old, smack in voting range. How does Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans reach them?
“No good answer to that,” said Evans, who has seen his ward flip from edgy to yuppie in the past 20 years on the council. “You have to appeal to them one on one. Many new residents aren’t registered, they might be voting in their home state, some are simply not interested, some are Independents.”
Potential voters in Evans’ ward tend to be young, transient and living in condominiums. Besides, Evans is running unopposed. Uptown in Muriel Bowser’s Ward 4, newcomers are more rooted in homes and schools. “People are investing in where they live,” says Councilwoman Bowser, who’s opposed in her race for a second term next Tuesday. She believes she’s been engaging newcomers by going door to door and meeting with young parents.
Two things will focus D.C.’s newest residents on politics: crime and schools. I would bank on education. When the little ones get ready for public schools, the parents get ready to rumble with the political class, and then — watch out.
“The new voters will want efficiency and proficiency,” the political operative says. “They’ll vote their pocketbooks. They will have no loyalty to the old guard. I see big changes possible.”
Let’s hope for sooner rather than later.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
