Meet the Ward 2 DC Council candidates in the November 2020 election

After winning the hotly contested Ward 2 Democratic primary and the special election to fill out the remainder of the former Ward 2 councilmember’s term, Brooke Pinto joined the DC Council in late June. She faces another election in November for a full four-year term representing Ward 2 on the DC Council.

The general election is a four-way race between Pinto, the Democratic nominee, independents Randy Downs and Martin Miguel Fernández, and Statehood Green Party nominee Peter Bolton.

The challengers

Randy Downs
Website | Twitter

Downs is an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Dupont Circle and Sierra Club employee. His website says that if elected, he would focus on supporting Ward 2’s commercial corridors, providing small business grants, lowering Metro fares, constructing a bike lane on 9th Street NW or a nearby parallel street, completing the K Street Transitway, enacting ranked choice voting, decriminalizing sex work, and expanding affordable housing and housing for LGBTQ seniors.

Downs, who would be the first openly gay DC councilmember in six years, told the Washington Blade, “The Council needs a leader who’s not just an ally, but who is a member of this proud community.” Downs, who moved to DC from rural Missouri in 2011, supported Patrick Kennedy in the Ward 2 primary, and changed his voter registration from Democrat to independent before launching his campaign in late July.

Martín Miguel Fernández
Website | Twitter

Fernández, a DJ and employee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was born in Peru and raised in Cathedral Heights in Ward 3 and then in Kensington, Maryland. He told DCist he’s a “leftist” who supported Jordan Grossman in the Ward 2 primary. Pointing to a campaign finance complaint filed against Pinto, Fernández told DCist, “I don’t think that Brooke Pinto is an ethical replacement for Jack Evans.”

Fernández’s website says he will consider cancelling rent and mortgage payments for small businesses and seek to expand rent control, enact Councilmember Charles Allen’s proposal to provide DC residents with a $100 monthly Metro benefit (which Allen announced before the pandemic and suggested funding from DC’s now-evaporated budget surplus), support safer bike and pedestrian infrastructure, redirect money from police to violence prevention initiatives and affordable housing, and establish a municipal high-speed internet network.

Peter Bolton
Website | Twitter

Bolton, a dual U.S. and British citizen who is the Statehood Green Party nominee, told the GW Hatchet he’s running “to give voters more of a choice and to try to break this dominance that the Democratic Party has had for so many years.” Bolton says the Democratic Party is not sufficiently progressive and he labeled Downs and Martin “switchers” because they formerly were registered Democrats.

The Statehood Green Party website has a long list of Bolton’s priorities, including public ownership of DC’s utilities, abolishing Metrorail and Metrobus fares, congestion fees for cars entering DC, ending WMATA’s partnerships with private companies, setting up a “media regulation body” empowered to shut down news outlets, citywide rent control, a permanent moratorium on evictions, and a $20 minimum wage.

Republican Katherine Venice qualified for the ballot but dropped out of the race, saying she wanted to focus on saving American democracy from Donald Trump.

The incumbent

Brooke Pinto
Website | Twitter

Pinto was the last candidate to enter the Ward 2 primary, and Greater Greater Washington had already endorsed Patrick Kennedy for the seat when she announced her candidacy. She won the primary with 28% of the vote, defeating second-place finisher Kennedy by 379 votes in an eight-way race. Two weeks after her primary victory, she won the special election to fill the term of disgraced former Councilmember Jack Evans. Most of the other candidates from the primary dropped out of the special election and Pinto won that contest with 43% of the vote. She was sworn in on June 27.

Pinto, a Connecticut native, moved to DC in 2014 to attend Georgetown law school, and after graduating, she went to work for the DC Attorney General as a fellow, and then as assistant attorney general for policy and legislative affairs.

Shortly after Pinto took her seat on the Council, DC finalized the 2021 budget. Pinto voted against a proposed tax increase on annual incomes higher than $250,000. She supported a proposed $35 million budget cut to the Streetcar extension across the Anacostia River into Ward 7 so the money could be redirected to public housing repairs.

Pinto’s campaign website says she will work to expand rent control, incentivize landlords to lease vacant storefronts, encourage the Historic Preservation Review Board to improve its review process, ensure adequate lighting on streets, place more cameras in Metro stations, support the proposal for a $100 monthly Metro subsidy, and expand bike lanes and electric vehicle charging stations.

Ward 2 and urbanism

Ward 2 includes most of downtown, as well as Foggy Bottom, West End, Dupont Circle, Georgetown, and Logan Circle, making it the center of many of the urbanism issues in DC.

This centrality has made Ward 2 the site of much discussion regarding transportation, housing, economic development, and public safety. Recently, there have been some notable transportation improvements in the ward, including the H Street, I Street and 7th Street bus lanes and funding to build the K Street Transitway. And there have been setbacks, like the mayor and Council stalling a long-anticipated 9th Street bike lane. Because it’s at the heart of the city’s multimodal transportation network, Ward 2 takes center stage during WMATA budget fights, congestion pricing proposals, and the allocation of scarce streetspace.

Although mostly built out, Ward 2 includes several historic neighborhoods, such as Georgetown, Dupont Circle, and Logan Circle, which feature heavily in debates around historic preservation and increased density. Most of the city’s central business District is in Ward 2 (and much of the rest of Ward 2 is only blocks from it), so the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and alternative uses for millions of square feet of office space are particularly relevant in this race.

The next Ward 2 councilmember will have to lead on these many issues, and we hope to gather more information on the candidates’ commitment to housing affordability, sustainable transportation, and equitable development. Greater Greater Washington sent questionnaires to the four general election candidates in Ward and we plan to publish them soon.