With the D.C. general election months away, local Democrats are uniting in anticipation of what, according to history, has been guaranteed victory for Democratic mayoral, delegate and down-ballot candidates who won their party primaries.
As those efforts continue, independent voters and candidates are also making their voices heard, standing up against what they call a set of circumstances that have long set the stage for the District’s socioeconomic maladies.
“We’re starting to see this repetitive cycle where we have groups and cliques forming, but the everyday people’s lives that need them and the issues and the policies that need to be enforced or addressed are falling by the wayside,” said Dr. Rhonda L. Hamilton, an independent mayoral candidate. “We see a quality of life that is changing and that is diminishing as a result of the disconnect of government from everyday citizen lives.”
Hamilton, a mental health advocate and small business owner, launched her mayoral bid earlier this year, in the middle of a Democratic primary that pitted D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) against former D.C. council members Kenyan McDuffie and Vincent Orange, Gary Goodweather, Rini Sampath, Ernest Johnson, Hope Solomon, and write-in candidate Yaida Ford.
This election season unfolded more than a decade after Hamilton left the Democratic Party, perturbed by what she recounted as then-President Barack Obama’s overtures to congressional Republicans.
“I realized that moving forward, that they were going to have to earn my vote,” Hamilton said. “I really didn’t want to claim a party that wasn’t helping the lives that I had been reaching out to as a mental health advocate. Their lives weren’t changing, regardless of who was in power, whether it was the Republicans or Democrats.”
Earlier this month, just weeks after Lewis George’s first-round victory in D.C.’s first-ever ranked-choice voting primary election, Hamilton ramped up her campaign with an event at Colony House on Farragut Street NW. That’s where she promoted a platform that focuses on: housing stability, increasing access to comprehensive health care, repairing strained community-police relationships, budget accountability and transparency, support of small businesses, and investments in youth.
In her second attempt at the mayor’s seat, Hamilton expressed a desire to build upon her advocacy for those who were displaced by the Encampment Pilot in 2021. In the weeks before June 16, when fewer than 40% of registered Democrats voted, Hamilton also told The Informer that aims to stimulate civic engagement among the disaffected and unengaged.
“Democrats anticipate that their electorate would show up because of the threats, but the truth of the matter is that it’s important for us to help D.C. residents that were not voting,” Hamilton told The Informer. “We realized that if we could successfully move a certain percentage of the non-voting population to the table, in addition to going after the frustrated voters that are at table, we could really change the trajectory of the conversation.”
In the Face of Trumpism, D.C. Democrats Espouse Unity
The D.C. Democratic primary season exposed fault lines between factions of the local Democratic Party, including elder party leaders, some of whom employed a nativist tone, and younger, more radical organizers who touted their direct ties to a changing community.
Some races, including that for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat, also stoked controversy about the increasing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
On July 18, long after the smoke cleared, the D.C. Democratic Party hosted its unity breakfast at STATION DC at Union Market. For the several dozen who attended, the three-hour event served as an exercise in healing and creating a united front against President Donald J. Trump and congressional Republicans who continue to infringe on local affairs.
“While the campaign has ended, our work as a party continues. We share a common commitment to protecting our democracy, advancing D.C. statehood, defending home rule, and improving the lives of all residents in all eight wards,” said Charles Wilson, chair of the D.C. Democrats. “As we look toward November and beyond, our success is going to depend on our ability to work together. When Democrats are united, we are stronger, we are more effective, and we’re able to better serve the residents that we were elected to serve.”
In his remarks, McDuffie pledged his support for Lewis George, who he said will build upon D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s foundation to protect D.C. home rule, strengthen the economy, expand opportunity and affordable housing, and make the District safer.
“That work is not just about one person. It belongs to all of us,” McDuffie said. “Some of it happens in government. Some of it happens in neighborhoods. Some of it happens in our businesses, our nonprofits, our schools, our places of worship. The point is this: every one of us still has a role to play.”
Lewis George later took to the stage as Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright” blared over jumbo speakers, perhaps in recognition of what she called the toll that the primary election took on all campaigns. In her remarks, she used returning citizen re-entry advocate Tony Lewis, Jr.’s mantra of “D.C. or Nothing. She also evoked the Kwanzaa principles of umoja (unity), ujima (collective works and responsibility), kujichagulia (self-determination) and imani (faith).
“When we come together from different backgrounds, different upbringings, and bring those thoughtful ideas together, we are better because of it,” Lewis George said. “So let us celebrate the diversity within our Democratic Party and in our leadership because it is our greatest strength. And so my message today is that there, this room right here and this D.C. Democratic Party right here, there is room for every single one of us.”
Those who were in attendance at the unity breakfast included: D.C. Council members Anita Bonds (D-At large), Trayon White (D-Ward 8), Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7), and Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3). Others in the room were former D.C. council members Yvette Alexander, Harry Thomas, Jr., and Jack Evans, along with Ward 1 D.C. Council Democratic nominee Aparna Raj, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb and Shadow U.S. Senator Paul Strauss.
Bowser didn’t attend the breakfast. Her team didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about her absence.
Though members of the local Democratic establishment had much to celebrate, other moments, like that facilitated by D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large), prompted silence.
White, Democratic nominee for the seat that D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton will soon leave, analyzed Trump’s July 16 primetime address to the nation, particularly, as he noted, how the president’s remarks foreshadow future attempts at election interference.
“That might happen when it’s time for me to be sworn in to Congress to represent our city as a third delegate representing our city,” White said on the afternoon of July 18. “That might happen in 2028 when it is time for a new president to be sworn in because this time instead of a rambling man decrying the outcome of a campaign with a mob of people storming the Capitol, he is prepared to use the full force of the federal government and troops in our city to stop the peaceful transfer of power to stop democracy.”
Within a matter of seconds, however, White changed the tenor of his speech with words of inspiration for local Democrats.
“What they are not counting on is that D.C. doesn’t just lay down. We stand up,” he said. “We have a party that comes together that is strong for the purpose of protecting our city and protecting democracy and that is exactly what we are going to do. So I won’t be a delegation of one representing Washington D.C. We will be a delegation of 700,000 people coming together to say that we are going to protect our city and democracy.”
In His Latest Electoral Bid, Kymone Freeman Channels the Energy of D.C. Statehood Green Party’s Hilda Mason
For Kymone Freeman, truly protecting democracy is a matter of addressing the elephant in the room.
“The corporate leadership of the Democratic Party is more committed to providing Israel with free health care, subsidized housing, and subsidized education than they are to providing those things for the people in America,” said Freeman, “with your tax money.”
In the weeks after becoming the D.C. Statehood Green Party nominee for D.C. delegate, Freeman has been gelling plans together for town halls to take place during the month of August. Those town halls, he said, will center on the theme of, “General Election to General Strike: Tax Resistance or Statehood.”
“D.C. should not be paying federal income taxes in the absence of statehood,” he told The Informer. “If I am fortunate enough to get into the office, I’m taking this country to court over the right for us to be tax exempt.”
Freeman questioned whether White, or any other Democrat, had the gall to employ such a course of action. He, like Hamilton, went on to point out that local Democrats have fallen short in significantly improving life outcomes and spurring civic engagement among the most marginalized.
In advance of Black August, a month dedicated to Black liberation and the political prisoners who fought for that cause, Freeman continues to call the local Democratic Party a buffer designed to neutralize radical sentiment.
“The majority of the people in the city, whether they support or identify as a Democrat, it’s because [he Democrats] are the fake, controlled opposition party,” Freeman told The Informer. “There’s no real allegiance to the Democratic Party anymore. We’re looking for how to fight. In the absence of an answer to that question, people have thrown their hands up and chose not to fight.”
In preparation for, yet another battle to change the tide, Freeman has as a muse the late Hilda Mason, the District’s longest-serving at-large council member since Home Rule. Mason, who represented the D.C. Statehood Green Party on the council between 1977 and 1999, was also a DSA member elected to higher office well before Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) gave the organization national prominence.
“One of the few things I can say I’m proud of about D.C. politics is that we’ve seen several instances where the candidate with the most money does not win,” Freeman said. “The candidate with The Washington Post endorsement does not win. We are primed for that. We’re now stepping to the unknown, the final chapter, and breaking the assumption that the Democratic primary winner is the assumed winner in the general election.”
If elected, Freeman’s policy goals, in addition to withholding federal taxes, include addressing the root causes of violence and mandating that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designates 30% of a person’s income as the maximum monthly rent.
He called his platform the end all, be all in eradicating economic strife in D.C. and across the country.
“There’s a question of whether or not these are systemic failures, or an efficient system. I’ll let you choose,” Freeman said. “The fact is that Ward 3 has three times the amount of grocery stores than Ward 7. Ward 7 has two times the population of Ward 3, but Ward 7 has more liquor stores than Ward 3. That’s systemic and that’s at the foot of our elected officials and policy makers.”
