The D.C. elections board threw out a ploy by Mayor Adrian Fenty to allow independents to vote in September’s Democratic primary, the latest blow to a campaign that some say is starting to look desperate.
The Fenty campaign move was unprecedented in the city as a late-in-the-game effort to change a voting rule. The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics quickly rejected the maneuver following a hearing on the campaign’s petition Wednesday morning. It was the latest in a series of polling losses and message shifts for a campaign that once seemed untouchable with its $5 million bank roll.
“He’s running; he’s running scared,” Ward 7 resident Kenney Sullivan said. Sullivan represents one of the subgroups that has turned on the mayor, leading to his tenuous position less than three weeks before the primary. He was one of 160 Parks and Recreation child care workers fired in September 2009 by the Fenty administration in a move to privatize some city agencies. Sullivan isn’t alone as a black voter who voted for Fenty in 2006 and who is now “praying” for the mayor to be replaced.
About 54 percent of black D.C. Democrats polled by the independent Clarus Research Group backed Gray in a poll released last week, compared with 61 percent of white voters polled supporting Fenty. The mayor’s numbers were at their worst among black women, just 15 percent of whom supported him, a point Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy highlighted in a Wednesday column. “Fenty’s approval rating among black women is at an all-time low. And you just can’t win a citywide race if enough of them are aligned against you,” Milloy wrote.
The election board maneuvering, along with Fenty’s apologies both in public appearances and in television advertisements for not being a good listener, are signs that the mayor is getting the message that his re-relection isn’t a sure thing
“Fenty didn’t try to change election laws because he wanted to include independent voters. He had 10 years, first on the council, then as mayor to do that, ” said political consultant Chuck Thies. “This is a sign of desperation.”
Fenty should have gotten the message that his re-election was uncertain in January, when a Washington Post poll found that D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray held a 4 percentage point lead, 35 to 31, in a hypothetical matchup. Last week’s poll found that despite spending millions, Fenty’s campaign hasn’t pushed the dial a bit.
He’s in a statistical dead heat with the council chairman. The mayor has also lost seven of eight straw polls. He didn’t show up to the Ward 5 straw poll Monday night, saying he wasn’t invited.
It’s possible that if Fenty didn’t recognize the dire straits, his campaign staff did.
Fenty campaign Chairman Bill Lightfoot said the’ve been identifying Fenty supporters among Democracts, Republicans and independents all along. The campaign met with the board of elections in July and floated the idea that independent voters could register as Democrats through the Sept. 14 primary.
“[Board of elections general counsel Kenneth] McGhie thought our argument was reasonable,” Lightfoot said.
Not so on Wednesday, when the board followed McGhie’s advice that election law wouldn’t allow for independents to register.
Lightfoot said they won’t appeal.
“We think the mayor will win because voters will do what’s best for the city,” he said.
