Politics
Muriel Bowser defeats incumbent Vincent Gray in Washington D.C. mayoral primary
A jubilant Murial Bowser addresses her supporters following her victory over incumbent Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray. PHOTO/Cliff Owen/AP
Muriel Bowser won the District of Columbia’s Democratic mayoral primary Tuesday, defeating incumbent Vincent Gray in a race defined by a scandal involving Gray’s campaign 4 years ago.
Bowser tapped into an electorate that tired of the allegations surrounding Gray. Five people who worked on the mayor’s 2010 campaign have pleaded guilty to felonies, and Bowser said the city needed to move away from a mayor who faces potential criminal charges.
“The status quo is not good enough for us,” Bowser told supporters early Wednesday. “We know that we can do better and we know we need a fresh start.”
Bowser, 41, is a D.C. council member and a protege of former Mayor Adrian Fenty, whom Gray defeated in 2010. With votes still being counted early Wednesday, Bowser had 44 percent of the vote to Gray’s 32 percent.
The Democratic primary winner has gone on to win every general election since the district began electing a mayor 40 years ago. But Bowser who may become the first African American woman to become mayor of Washington D.C., still has to will face a credible challenger this November in David Catania, an independent council member.
Gray defeated Fenty in 2010 by tapping into dissatisfaction among African American residents. But a series of guilty pleas in federal court have revealed that top campaign aides broke the law to help him get elected. Three weeks ago, prosecutors said Gray knew about an illegal, US$668,000 slush fund that aided his get-out-the-vote efforts 4 years ago.
Gray has not been charged and insists he did nothing wrong. His attorney has said he is preparing for a possible indictment.
Bowser pledged to unite the party following the divisive primary campaign. “The residents of the nation’s capital have always elected a Democratic mayor, a Democratic president, and in big numbers, and we are going to do it again in November,” she said.
In his concession speech, Gray told a subdued crowd at a downtown hotel that he would continue working hard during the last 9 months of his term.
“The amount of work that we’ve done over the last three-and-a-quarter years has been nothing short of phenomenal,” the mayor said. Many Gray supporters view U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen’s office with suspicion and said it was unfair for prosecutors to accuse the mayor of wrongdoing without charging him with a crime.
Some Bowser voters, meanwhile, said they backed her over other Gray challengers primarily because they felt she had the best chance to beat him.
Problems with electronic voting machines led to a delay in reporting results. Votes reported shortly before midnight Tuesday were almost entirely from paper ballots run through scanners, said Tamara Robinson, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Board of Elections. She said poll workers did not shut down a handful of electronic machines properly, prompting officials to take a second look at electronic results to ensure they were being counted correctly.
Bowser worked for the local government in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland, and served as an elected neighborhood commissioner in the district before election to the council in 2007.
Opponents said Bowser lacks experience to be mayor, saying her legislative record is skimpy. Her most significant accomplishment on the council was the creation of an independent ethics board able to punish officials for violations.
Gray, 71, led nonprofit organizations and the city’s Department of Human Services before he was elected to the D.C. Council in 2004. As mayor, he’s known as a pragmatic, detail-oriented technocrat and sound manager of the city’s robust finances. The district has enjoyed a surging population, a booming real estate market and relatively low violent crime.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press