President Donald J. Trump is threatening to revoke Home Rule as the District nears the end of one of its most contentious primaries in recent history, and the D.C. Democratic State Committee continues its struggle to spur voter participation.
As conversations unfold about how to mend fences after June 16, longtime D.C. Democratic Party leader Wanda Lockridge said she and other members of her slate are up to the task of unifying the party and leading the fight for statehood.
“The conversations have already started about how we can bring this together, and people have to be willing to do that,” said Lockridge, Ward 8 committeewoman and candidate for the national committeewoman position.
Lockridge is one of several candidates who are running under the Democrats United to Free DC slate, a coalition she says brings the experience and temperance needed to organize Democratic voters.
If elected, Lockridge pledges to continue a journey in the Democratic Party that’s taken her across the District, and even the nation, fundraising on behalf of the party, forging ties with party leaders, and, more recently, understanding the fissures that precipitated Trump’s return to the Oval Office.
“Where we missed the ball is the unity piece,” Lockridge told The Informer. “People were scattered in different places. No one could come together at a reasonable time to make sure that our message was carried through. If we would have come together, the outcome would have been much better than they are today.”
Lockridge said that, with decades of institutional knowledge among slate members, the Democrats United to Free DC will work in tandem with newly elected leadership to create a strategy around combating Trump and congressional Republicans.
“This slate is ready to do that work right now,” Lockridge told The Informer. “I’ve worked at the council. I have relationships with all the council members that’s running and those are still there. We would just leverage that partnership.”
The D.C. Democratic State Committee Establishment Faces a Challenge in the Free DC Slate
For a contingent of local Democrats however, the very relationships that Lockridge and other members of the Democrats United to Free DC slate are heralding are a hindrance, more so than an asset for the rank-and-file members of D.C. Democratic Party— and the electorate at large.
Veteran D.C. Democratic leader Phil Pannell said he is one of several people running on the Free DC slate, a movement, more directly named after the Free DC movement, that was birthed in opposition to what he calls a situation of the local Democratic establishment’s making.
“I saw the party really take a downturn particularly when we saw the posture of the state committee regarding Initiative 83,” said Pannell, a D.C. Democratic State Committee national committeeman candidate who served as treasurer of Make All Votes Count DC, which successfully organized for the approval and implementation of ranked-choice voting.
Earlier this month, a District judge ruled against the D.C. Democratic Party, which filed a lawsuit in opposition to Initiative 83, a ballot initiative approved by nearly three-fourths of District voters in 2024. Amid court deliberations, D.C. Board of Elections conducted meetings and public demonstrations while some longtime D.C. Democratic Party members expressed concern about the potential for the new voting system to confuse and marginalize elderly voters, English language learners, and other populations.
Pannell called such concerns unfounded, and part of a greater effort to concentrate political power among the few.
“They didn’t advance any type of electoral reform,” Panell said about the D.C. Democratic Party. “The state committee was basically running an incumbent’s protection program.”
If elected, Pannell said he and other members of the Free DC slate have their sights set on D.C.’s youngest residents, as well as those encumbered by problems that keep them away from the ballot box, or any other type of civic engagement.
“We need to drill down and get high school students involved in the issues of politics, particularly in the struggle for statehood,” Pannell told The Informer. “Particularly here east of the river, we have a major problem with adult literacy. It doesn’t matter if you send ballots to people who have a problem reading them. We’ve got to deal with the issue of adult literacy and how we can help people navigate their ballots who have those particular challenges.”
Pannell said he will do that in collaboration with people described as younger, more radical members of the D.C. Democratic Party, including Kelsye Adams, a member of the Free DC slate who’s running against Lockridge for the national committeewoman seat.
Adams, co-founder of the Free DC Project and executive director of Long Live Go-Go, carries a history of Democratic Party involvement that includes a stint as the D.C. Young Democrats’ national committeewoman and an internship with Virginia’s Democratic Party.
Since before Trump’s return to the White House, Adams has also been a constant presence in the streets, making the message of statehood palatable and organizing D.C. residents against federal and congressional infringement on local affairs.
If elected, she promises a similar level of dedication to the D.C. Democratic State Committee, much to the benefit of everyday people.
“Even when I was getting signatures, the main thing people were saying was that they didn’t even realize D.C. had a D.C. Democratic State Committee,” Adams told The Informer. “Bringing awareness that this group even exists was literally the first step [to voter engagement], naming specifically what the Democratic Party of D.C. does. Folks kind of open their eyes to this group and what they need to be doing in order to mobilize the city.”
While Adams has set out to challenge the status quo, she espoused the need for solidarity.
“It’s not about making a new party,” Adams told The Informer. “It’s about changing the conversation and bringing in new voices, new energy, and just new ideas to the current party. This is the Democrats, and when Democrats fight, Democrats win. We want to keep that motto going, but we are the new Democrats.”
While she didn’t mention the Free DC slate by name, Lockridge has expressed a similar sentiment, telling The Informer that there’s room for various perspectives.
“While there’s experience and you tie young people into the new tools, we become stronger and stronger,” Lockridge told The Informer. “That’s why we call ourselves the Big Tent in Unity, because we bring in all great ideas together. Some that you may agree with, some you may not agree with, but when you come collectively, you always come with the best ideas and solutions.”
Lockridge pushed back against a notion that the Democrats United to Free DC slate is a roadblock to systemic change.
“Coalition building is not complacency,” she said. “It actually shows progress in how you bring groups together to activate voices.”
For some people like Lia Lake however, the local Democratic Party establishment hasn’t gone far enough in embracing all voices— including that of transgender D.C. residents.
“We’ve seen the trans community in particular be used as a political football,” said Lake, a Free DC slate member and D.C. resident of more than a decade.
Lake is running to become the first transgender/intersex D.C. Democratic State Committee at-large committeewoman. Her experience includes Initiative 83 advocacy, the fight to increase the minimum wage, and even centering the decriminalization of earth-based psychedelics.
If elected, Lake said she will help Free DC build upon what it’s been able to accomplish since its inception.
“The way to excite folks is to step up and show that we can do better and we deserve better. That’s really what got me involved with the Free D.C. Project,” Lake told The Informer. “Centering the dignity of all District residents and leveraging that to make a real push for D.C.’s self-determination and autonomy through statehood.”
Whether to Remain Steady or Think Outside of the Box
The D.C. Democratic State Committee is chartered by the Democratic National Committee to represent the District’s Democratic voters. That job includes weighing in Democratic Party affairs at various levels with the goal of preserving democracy, advancing the fight for statehood, and ensuring the election of the Democratic presidential nominee.
John Carlos Green, a Democrats United to Free DC slate member, told The Informer the best state committee members understand the mission and maintain fidelity to it. If -re-elected as at-large committeeman, Green said he will do just that.
“I’ve seen some of the rhetoric coming from the Free DC slate saying that we are complacent, but we have to be realistic as well,” Green said. “We’re not legislators. We don’t sit on the council, but what we can do is activate the Democratic State Committee and bring more people into the fold.”
Green, a D.C. resident of more than 20 years, solidified his role as: an advisory neighborhood commissioner, then-Attorney General Karl Racine’s re-election campaign manager, and more recently, as a 2020 Democratic National Convention delegate. He’s currently at the D.C. Public Charter School Board, where he leads community engagement and organizational outreach.
Such work, Green said, has prepared him to unify District Democrats and bring younger voices into the fold.
“I think we are stronger when we can activate that voice in young people and get them motivated to start voting and actually seeing the power right before them,” Green said as he reflected on his first time voting as a Democrat. “I was a young immigrant voter who, when I got my naturalized citizenship,…one of the most powerful things to do as a young person was to cast my first vote.”
Irene Kang, an at-large committeewoman candidate on the Democrats United to Free DC slate, echoed Green’s sentiments, telling The Informer that experience paves the way for an effective use of resources at such a unique time for the District.
“It’s about being able to take that activism and passion and harness it so that we can bring back results for our members,” Kang said. “It is important to fight Trump’s administration or the federal overreach and whatnot, but if you don’t know how to go about fighting for the residents’ everyday issues, then our party is not going to be strong.”
Kang has amassed experience as a D.C. Council staffer and recording secretary for the Ward 5 Democrats. For her, being in such positions has connected her directly to District residents, keeping her open-minded and ready to work with young people while being “steadfast” amid significant change in the D.C. government.
“Right now, it’s hot to be controversial or acrimonious with other people around you just to start a fight,” Kang told The Informer. “That’s where I think we’ve shown with our representation and the way that we are presenting ourselves that it’s not about fighting or trying to convince each other. It’s about coming together to be embracing of everyone’s different thoughts and unique ideas so that we can be better all together.”
Sam Jared Bonar, a D.C. Democratic at-large committeeman candidate representing the Free DC slate, said such a mindset has hindered the party for a long time.
“The Democratic Party in D.C. doesn’t have competition, really. Why are they so lame? Why is there no action? Why is there no force behind it?” Bonar told The Informer. “People don’t know the politicians. People don’t know what’s going on. There’s a kind of fear of thinking outside the box.”
Bonar, a comedic civic strategist, has played a role in ward-level and citywide campaigns, including that through which ranked-choice voting came to fruition. If elected, he said he will work within the D.C. Democratic Party in search and execution of what he calls bold solutions.
“I’d really love for us to advocate for economic development, like a public bank, a system for economic development that prioritizes local systems and ecosystems, and also transformative solutions for youth justice,” Bonar said. “How do we actually get trusted messengers to follow through with a one-on-one strategy? There’s no strategy in how we do things. A lot of good words, but not a lot of strategy.”
In communities east of the Anacostia River, Alejaibra Badu-Sloan and Charnal Chaney are endeavoring to connect the D.C. Democratic Party to those who are skeptical of politics. As a Free DC candidate for Ward 8 committeeman, Badu-Sloan aspires to help the D.C. Democratic Party rethink its priorities.
“Imagine if every ward held regular grief circles. Imagine if the Democratic Party held space for people to grieve, for people to heal, for people to be able to use a voice and be supported.” said Badu-Sloan, a Ward 8 resident who’s spent the last two decades focused on healing justice. “Imagine if caregivers had support groups. I feel like there’s so many people doing the work, but people are not being supported by the folks who are there saying that they’re making the rules and the legislation possible.”
If elected as Ward 8 committeewoman, Chaney has similar aims, while also looking at the John A. Wilson Building, where the D.C. Council often passes legislation. She told The Informer that her campaign for accountability is informed by her experiences as a mother, yoga instructor, and community advocate pushing for expansion of behavioral health services.
“Every council member gets a committee,” Chaney said. “So whoever is over these different committees, we need to be able to hold accountable…. To take our mental health seriously across the District.”
As a member of the Democrats United to Free DC slate, Ben Dalley said that regardless of the outcome, he and his fellow slate members have the mindset of collaboration. Dalley touts what he calls his propensity for aggregating various ideas as an asset.
“When folks start connecting their vote to actual results, that’s when you see progress,” said Dalley, candidate for Ward 2 committeeman. “Historically, folks have become jaded because they vote for an outcome and either it takes too long for it to arrive or never arrives at all, right? So in between that, we need to work towards getting the results folks want and also keeping them engaged in the conversation.”
