Denial is the first stage of grief, the psychiatrists say, and there has been plenty of that on display among Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White’s most ardent supporters in the wake of his shocking arrest on federal bribery charges last week. But many D.C. politicos have zipped on through to acceptance in just a few days’ time.
White hasn’t been convicted of anything, but the evidence against him revealed in federal prosecutors’ opening salvo is damning enough that most ward bigwigs consider his political career pretty much over. More shoes are sure to drop as the case against him proceeds, and the question now is what (and, more specifically, who) comes next.
The scandal broke just as many top Democrats in Ward 8 and around the city jetted off to the Democratic National Convention, and Loose Lips hears that their Chicago hotel rooms became the sites of several late-night strategy sessions plotting out potential scenarios ahead of what will surely be a wild few months in D.C. politics. There are just two months left before the November election, where White was previously expected to cruise to victory, and now party insiders have to decide how to approach this unusual situation.
White has until Sept. 12 to drop out of the race and remove his name from the ballot; otherwise, he stays on as sort of a zombie candidate. The deadline for adding new names to the ballot has long passed, so in the meantime, several politicos are considering write-in bids. The other option for Ward 8 voters is Republican Nate Derenge.
But what if White is re-elected on Nov. 5? He’s the Democratic nominee in a presidential election cycle, which could help him survive no matter how bad the headlines get. That would put the onus on the D.C. Council, which has already set up an ad hoc committee to investigate White’s actions, and could vote to kick him off the body in a couple months. A chaotic special election would be necessary to fill the seat sometime in early 2025. But even then, as former Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans demonstrated in 2020, there’s nothing stopping White from simply running again.
This much is for sure: Things are going to get very weird in Ward 8 over the next few months. A politician who looked pretty much unbeatable as recently as a week ago has become a political pariah. And that presents a huge opportunity for the ward’s political class.
“When the carcass falls to the ground, the buzzards start to swarm,” says Stuart Anderson, the second vice president of the Ward 8 Democrats who managed White’s 2016 Council bid and has worked to unseat him ever since.
In the near term, expect to see at least a few politicos announce write-in bids for the November election. Former State Board of Education Rep. Markus Batchelor tells LL that he’s “seriously considering” a run, a development that convinced longtime activist Philip Pannell to drop his own bid for the office. Ex-Bellevue ANC Olivia Henderson also said Monday that she plans to run. Others have tested the waters a bit more quietly.
LL hears that White’s rivals in the 2024 primary—Congress Heights Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Salim Adofo and former Ballou High School Principal Rahman Branch—have both begun exploring bids, though Adofo seems more serious about it thus far. He’s convened several public and private meetings of supporters to gauge the viability of a write-in effort, according to five sources in the ward. Charles Wilson, the head of the D.C. Democratic Party and an Anacostia resident, has also discussed the idea (and he confirmed as much to the Washington Informer last week). LL’s sources have also mentioned Ward 8 Democrats Chair Troy Prestwood as a potential contender, but he has generally stayed away from Council bids thus far.
“Everybody’s trying to figure it out in real time,” says Batchelor, who also briefly ran for the Council seat in the most recent primary. “But I’m seriously considering it, given my concern about the ward and what options our neighbors will have on the ballot in November.”
Some in the ward view the write-in efforts as a waste of time. They require candidates with deep pockets and serious name recognition, and face a steep challenge in convincing voters to break their habit of checking the box for the Democratic candidate. Tony Williams managed a write-in victory as a well-known incumbent mayor, but D.C. political history isn’t exactly rife with other examples of similar successes.
“To run a write-in, you’re either showing your misunderstanding of the process or just trying to make a statement,” says At-Large SBOE Rep. Jacque Patterson, himself a veteran of many Ward 8 campaigns. “If Trayon White’s name is on the ballot, he’s going to win.”
Patterson’s confidence on that point stems not only from the likelihood that low-information voters eager to cast a ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris will severely outweigh those closely following the local news, but also from White’s persistent support among his base. Many in D.C.’s upper echelon have been quick to back away from White as the details of the allegations against him have come out, but many of his supporters aren’t yet ready to cast him aside.
White’s brand as the “people’s champ” has endured despite years of rumors about his big spending at the MGM National Harbor, his frequent trips to tropical locales at inconvenient times, and his penchant for fancy cars—his recent legal troubles may not be so shocking in that context. Plus, the FBI doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation in Southeast, where many still feel Mayor-for-Life Marion Barry was (as memorialized by his infamous proclamation) “set up” when agents caught him smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room three decades ago.
Some faith leaders in the ward, particularly White’s fellow Muslims, have already begun raising questions about the circumstances surrounding his sudden, Sunday afternoon arrest. And there is speculation that some of White’s more rabid fans may have assaulted one of the men suspected of informing on the councilmember, according to a recent Instagram story depicting an altercation outside a Maryland restaurant last week. Plainly, this scandal isn’t enough to doom White’s hopes at the ballot box.
“It’s an emotional defense mechanism for people,” laments the Rev. Wendy Hamilton, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Bellevue. “Rather than acknowledge it, start to unpack it, you double down. ‘He couldn’t have done that. Somebody set him up. This is impossible. He wouldn’t do that, right? This can’t be what I’m seeing. This can’t be what it is.’”
With that support in his back pocket, Ward 8 leaders doubt White will walk away from office voluntarily. “There’s just no catalyst for him to resign,” Patterson argues, no matter how many articles the Washington Post runs about him.
Pannell speculates that White is seeking to “use his Council seat as a bargaining chip in a plea agreement,” since prosecutors have been willing to reduce penalties against elected officials in past cases if they agree to resign.
“Trayon will have a lot of sympathy, since he’s just going to say he was set up,” says one of White’s former political confidants, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “This question is not one of law or politics, but of Council votes.”
Indeed, the likeliest outcome that many Ward 8 watchers see is that lawmakers step in and give White the boot, rather than waiting on the lengthy legal process to play out.
Evans wasn’t even charged with a crime and the Council was ready to expel him over some ethical violations five years ago. The new ad hoc committee, chaired by At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, could decide that the questions surrounding White’s conduct (and, perhaps, his residency) are grave enough to warrant similar measures.
And virtually no one to speak with LL, inside or outside of the Wilson Building, believes that the Council is eager to keep White around. He hasn’t exactly put a lot of effort into cultivating the sort of relationships he’d need to survive a second career-threatening scandal, considering he’s shown very little interest in the day-to-day job of legislating these past few years. McDuffie may be one of the few councilmembers who White has any sort of working relationship with, but he has his own political future to worry about.
“At the pace the legal system goes, he’ll be on the Council for another term,” White’s ex-ally reasons. “And all this makes the city look bad, it makes the Council look bad. Why wouldn’t they want him removed?”
The Council’s ad hoc committee, which includes every councilmember except White, is set to deliver its recommendations about potential sanctions by Dec. 16, according to a memo circulated by Chair Phil Mendelson. If the committee suggests expulsion, the Council could wait to vote until after White is sworn in for a hypothetical third term in January, which would trigger a special election in the six months after his seat is vacated.
White could always run again in the style of Barry, his political mentor, and cast himself as the persecuted personification of Ward 8’s woes. But most of LL’s sources doubt White would do so with the legal case against him still unresolved—that similar tactic didn’t exactly go great for Evans in 2020, after all.
The ward’s first open-seat race since Barry’s death a decade ago would undoubtedly be a wild affair, particularly with such a short timeline. LL fully expects to see double-digit contenders line up for such a contest, if it comes to pass, and some of the would-be write-ins (like Wilson or Prestwood) may opt to keep their powder dry now in order to conserve their resources for this very scenario.
“They’re both people who are very well known,” Patterson says, referring to the pair. “So if we move past all of this and the seat becomes vacant, they become very credible candidates, if that’s what they seek.”
All these machinations make for amusing political theater, but the reality in the near term is much more bleak. Ward 8 is facing the next few months where they effectively don’t have a councilmember, considering White has been canceling community events and generally avoiding any public appearances since his arrest.
One ward activist jokes to LL that this might not end up feeling appreciably different from White’s past performance in the Wilson Building. But the effects on perceptions of the city, and the ward, will be very real.
“It will give people an excuse to say, ‘See, this is why we don’t deal with Ward 8,’” Hamilton says. “It feeds into the Republican, conservative narrative of, ‘We told you, crime is out of control, they don’t deserve statehood if they’re going to act like this.’ It’s all just so much bigger than Trayon.”