In her two decades as an active member of D.C.’s Democratic Party, Candace Tiana Nelson has seen party members struggle to unite in the aftermath of an election.
Such was the case, she said, in 2010 when then-D.C Council Chair Vince Gray unleashed a campaign treasure chest to foil then-D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s reelection bid.
“Some people in the party were for Fenty, some people in the party were for Gray,” Nelson said. “It didn’t seem like the party let people be free to choose. Some people were afraid, like ‘If I go over here, is this going to happen or not?’”
Last fall, Nelson threw her hat into the ring for the Democratic at-large seat, during a time when D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) had not yet announced her retreat from electoral politics. Months later, she has emerged as one of the more prominent at-large candidates, endorsed by two other contenders in an election year where voters can choose more than one option through ranked-choice voting.
Nelson, however, has yet to return the favor, opting instead to tout her 20 years of experience. On the campaign trail, she has focused primarily on housing, education and health care.
“If someone is going to have stable housing and preventative health care, that builds a strong individual, which then builds a community, which then builds a strong city,” Nelson said. “A lot of what I’m hearing in and around education is making sure we’re focused on things for kids in need in terms of the funding and universal free food.”
To meet that goal, Nelson said she envisions allocation of public dollars to expand community programs throughout the District’s public and public charter schools. She said she can achieve that and more as a council member prepared to conduct oversight and build coalitions on day one.
“I call it the stable hand,” Nelson said. “I’m just looking forward to digging into oversight, digging into the budget, preserving our city services, and amplifying the voices of everyone, especially our seniors and our youth.”
Nelson’s D.C. government experience, which spans five agencies, includes her creation of D.C. Department of Employment Services (DOES)’ first agency performance plan, her part in the Mayor’s Office on African-American Affairs’ launch, and the streamlining of Medicaid, TANF and SNAP disbursements through District Direct.
As chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 4A, Nelson helped constituents and ANC colleagues alike tackle issues with D.C. government agencies. She counts among her most notable achievements collaboration with ANC 4C to secure the designation of the building formerly known as the Military Road School as swing space for Brightwood Elementary School.
If elected, Nelson aspires to bring a collaborative spirit in making the D.C. government work better for residents. Her priorities include: the creation of a civic tech platform to bolster council transparency; expansion of rent stabilization and strengthening the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act; working with the council to reestablish a standalone Committee on Education; increasing coordination and expanding funding to meet the needs of children with disabilities, and establishing the D.C. Department of Labor & Workers Rights.
“Good governance may not sound sexy or nice, but I think it is necessary,” Nelson told The Informer. “I got the government credibility, and do think that that is going to help me be effective in terms of getting us the change that we need because I think as we move forward to what we want the city to look like, the change can come.”
In Contentious Democratic Primary, Candace Tiana Nelson and Dyana Forester Emerge as Candidate Favorites
On June 16, the D.C. Board of Elections will facilitate ranked-choice voting, a process in races with more than two candidates where voters rank their preferences so no candidate wins without amassing at least 50% of the vote. Depending on the outcome, some races could go through more than one round, meaning it may take longer to announce a projected winner than in years past.
Some Democratic at-large D.C. Council candidates, like U.S. Shadow Representative Dr. Oye Owolewa, call ranked-choice voting a necessity.
“In the past, progressive candidates would oftentimes split each other’s votes, and somebody who wasn’t progressive would sneak through with less than 40, even 30% of the vote,” Owolewa told The Informer. “I think now [ranked-choice voting] allows us to build stronger coalitions, [and] gives voters more options.”
During the latter part of May, Owoelwa endorsed Nelson, Kevin B. Chavous, Dyana Forester and Fred Hill as candidates who are of the people and not “the billionaire class and elected officials from other cities.”
His announcement came days after Greg Jackson, who’s endorsed by Opportunity DC, encouraged supporters to rank Nelson, Forester, Lisa Raymond, and Dwight Davis.
Jackson, a gun violence prevention specialist with local and federal government experience, said each of the candidates he endorsed possesses a special set of skills that would make them effective legislators.
“Lisa is someone who’s worked in community service for 30 years, has really done some phenomenal work leading in the education space, and I think in a time where there’s so many challenges facing our youth, it’s important that we have an elected official who is willing to prioritize that and invest in future generations,” Jackson said. “With Candace, I’ve worked with her in the past when I was in D.C. government, and I’ve just been really impressed by her breadth of experience across multiple agencies… and when we think about oversight and getting the most out of our government agencies, she’s definitely one of the strongest out of our campaign class.”
Jackson displayed a similarly congenial tone with Forester and Davis.
“Dyana and I are both survivors of gun violence,” Jackson told The Informer. “She’s done some phenomenal work around pay equity and supporting families and paying family leave, and I really appreciate her passion and her bravery to take on some of the big issues that impacted her directly. Dwight is just so inspiring. He’s someone who’s really running for the right reasons to help the community around him as well as future generations.”
Since jumping into the race, Jackson has secured endorsements from former Ward 8 D.C. council member Eydie Whittington, Jawanna Hardy of Guns Down Friday, Markus Batchelor, and Dr. Warees Majeed of One Boardroom. Jackson has also garnered the support of eight mayors, including Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin.
All the while, he’s also organized a team of 200 volunteers, all of whom he said find value in his experience as a gun violence prevention specialist. In speaking about Owolewa’s recent comments about corporate-back candidates, Jackson said that Owolewa has mischaracterized him.
“We are fair elections, just like everyone else, and we raise our money by majority D.C. residents with the max of $100,” Jackson told The Informer. “Many of my supporters are families that have lost their loved ones to gun violence. They’re teachers, they’re my neighbors. Real people that are fired up about making the city safer, strengthening our education and bringing more jobs.”
Jackson went further in suggesting criticizing his opponent.
“As someone who, on stage, talks a big game about how much his neighbors are like family, it’s been frustrating to see only one candidate being so negative and hostile towards me and other other candidates as well,” Jackson told The Informer. “So it’s discouraging.”
Owolewa, who’s been on the receiving end of attack ads funded by Building Victories, an independent expenditure committee of the Association of Builders & Contractors of Metropolitan Washington, said his announcement was less about forcing a collaboration, but making a statement.
“When you see corporations put in independent expenditures, and they’re hiding who donates to them, and they’re giving or providing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of support, I think people in D.C. need to know that,” Owolewa said. “Right now, we have a budget that takes away from the working class and the middle class, and I believe the reason why we have these budgets and the reason why these legislations are passed on the backs of working class residents is because of these corporations that come in and essentially push elected officials to vote against the people.”
Several weeks prior to this candidate tug-of-war, Ward 1 Democratic D.C. Council candidates Rashida Brown and Miguel Trindade Deramo told their supporters to rank the other candidate second. Not long after, In the independent D.C Council special election, D.C. Councilmember Doni Crawford and State Board of Education President Jacque Patterson employed a similar tactic.
For now, Nelson isn’t revealing her rankings. She, however, continues to acknowledge what she calls the benefits of organizing candidates in an overwhelmingly Democratic city around their similarities, more so than their differences.
“Maybe this is the way we can heal faster if we’re focused on something different from the more divisive way of politics and campaigning,” said Nelson, a native of Winchester, Va. “Growing up in Virginia and seeing how…within the [Democratic] party, they have a succession plan. They seem to come together quicker after the primary because by any means necessary, they want to beat the Republicans.”
Grassroots Candidate Dyana Forester Weighs In on Ranked-Choice Voting
In total, there are nine contenders for the Democratic at-large council seat that Bonds currently holds: Nelson, Forester, Owolewa, Chavous, Jackson, Hill, Raymond, Davis and Leniqua’dominique Jenkins.
Over the last several weeks, this crop of candidates has attended forums across the District where each has attempted to set themselves aside from the pack, as it relates to either their council experience, outsider status, grasp of the issues, or District roots.
As Forester explained, she and some of the other candidates have spent just as much time exploring the possibility of collaboration via ranked-choice voting.
“It’s never actually turned [into] anything,” Forester told The Informer. “I don’t think anyone that I know of is considering going cross endorsements. We all recognize each other’s strengths. I can tell you the things that attract me to every candidate, like how they speak to my personal values.”
Forester, a District mother and grandmother with decades of organizing experience, is in her third year as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s senior director of labor relations. Before then, she served as president of the Washington Metropolitan Area AFL-CIO. Her platform centers on preservation and expansion of the community schools model, through which District students and families can receive wraparound services on school grounds.
If elected, Forester aims to leverage her union and workforce development experience to fund pathways that expose K-12 students to a variety of trades.
“We give a lot of money to people to run free apprenticeship programs, but what if we combine those resources through the funding that DOES has and directly connect it to the school?” Forester said. “Especially at a time where we’re saying our resources are limited, this would be a strategic use of all of our agency resources to ensure that our children are succeeding, and our families are succeeding.”
Since jumping into the race, Forester has clinched endorsements from nearly a dozen labor unions, as well as Moore and U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland). Another endorsement of note has come from Chevy Chase Forward, a grassroots organization fighting for housing equity and inclusivity west of Rock Creek Park and other District communities.
Forester, a former advisory neighborhood commissioner and president of Empower DC, credited Chevy Chase Forward’s support not only as a result of the rapport she’s built over the decades, but her lived experience as a child who made hour-long commutes for quality schooling.
“It was a moment…that I realized I spent 20 years of my life commuting from Southeast to Upper Northwest to go to school, always feeling out of place,” Forester said. “But then also to be in conversation with people that live in the community and want to actually create affordable housing and recognize the experience that I had as a child, or even as a mom, where we couldn’t find affordable housing around Deal Middle School or [what was formerly known as] Wilson High School.”
While out and about across the District, Forester has kept her ears to the streets, particularly during events where, in conjunction with other groups, her campaign educates voters about ranked-choice voting.
“These are not people that are at forums or advocates, but they feel like it’s just another way to disenfranchise their vote,” Forester told The Informer. “They’re very very skeptical of it, maybe because of everything that we’re seeing that’s happening on the national level….I think like the ranked choice voting people are trying hard to explain it. I think the Board of Elections is doing the best job they could do, but I think we’re just at a moment where people don’t trust electoral politics and they don’t see this as what the intent is.”
Forester, who hasn’t endorsed Owolewa, Jackson, or any other at-large Democratic candidate as of yet, has been connecting with residents in what she described as the most organic spaces, including senior centers, youth gatherings and the main thoroughfares of Ward 8.
As she reflected on her interactions, Forester told The Informer that voters light up seeing a candidate who, amid gentrification and demographic changes, questions what local government can do for them.
“I don’t want people that are being impacted every day by the challenges…left out of the process,” Forester told The informer. “It may not be intentional, but there’s no opportunity to actually say, ‘You deserve to be here and lead and have a seat at the table’ versus ‘You are someone that we’re looking at data and statistics to determine how we make decisions that impact you.’”
While, for Forester, it’s yet to be determined whether ranked-choice voting can bring in a candidate of the people, she’s pressing her way. That means going into the enclaves populated by constituents who aren’t filling the seats at candidate forums and other election-related events.
“Those are the people that are hurting the most, and are therefore challenged or disengaged, and feel like even if they do get engaged in politics, that things aren’t gonna really work out for them,” Forester told The Informer. “It’s just being intentional about finding… places where people are gathering, but also being respectful to [ask] if we can come in, and not come in as a candidate, but just come in as someone to listen to them.”
