In my enthusiasm for the weekend, I realized I forgot to write about the results of last Tuesday’s election! As you probably heard, Muriel Bowser beat David Catania for mayor, and a lot of other favorites did well in an election with a disappointing 32% turnout — especially since this was the first truly competitive general election for mayor in decades.
The results are below, but there’s also a fascinating interactive map put together by WAMU radio and Code for DC, showing results by precinct for the mayoral race, Initiative 71, the referendum legalizing recreational use of marijuana, and the attorney general race. Along with vote totals, the site also allows you to compare votes to other factors, like race, household income, who voted for Bowser or Gray during the Mayoral primary, where Fenty won in 2010, and a lot more. It’s pretty interesting — Catania handily won higher income areas while Bowser won lower areas and areas with high unemployment. Bowser won only majority black and hispanic areas while Catania won all the white-majority areas plus some black-majority ones as well. Schwartz didn’t win any precincts, and only finished second in one,
Oddly, Catania won most of the areas that supported Bowser in ths year’s Democratic primary for mayor, while Bowser won the areas that supported Gray. Maybe that speaks to Catania supporters not voting for the status quo, which was Gray during the primary, then became Bowser when she won the primary as the comparatively more status quo Democratic politician.
The mayoral race ended up 53%-35% in Bowser’s favor, with third candidate Carol Schwartz garnering 7%, though in Ward 1, Bowser topped Catania 48%-42%. In the At-Large Council race, favorites Anita Bonds and Elissa Silverman won with 24% and 12% of the vote respectively, but oddly, “under-votes” actually finished second with 22% of the ballot — in this race, voters were to choose two candidates. Under-votes means they only chose one, so it seems that almost a quarter of voters didn’t understand that.
Initiative 71 passed handily 65%-28%, and was 75%-19% in Ward 1.
For Attorney General, Karl Racine won with 37% of the vote, followed by Edward “Smitty” Smith, Lorie Masters and Paul Zukerberg. In Ward 1, Racine still won, but Zukerberg was second. Phil Mendelson won handily for Council Chair.
When it comes to Ward 1, Brianne Nadeau won her race handily, as was expected. Laura Wilson Phelan won the Board of Education race, topping David Do 32% to 22%. For ANC, there weren’t many races with two candidates, but the incumbents won some — Bobby Holmes over Kevin Dokho in 1A09 and Sedrick Muhammad narrowly over Patrick Nelson in 1B03, while challengers prevailed in others, like Jessica Louise Smith over Juan Lopez in 1B07. There were some close races too: David Gilliland beat Dyana NM Forester 186-183 in 1B 06. Your vote matters!
For the full results, check here.
