By: Miriam Edelman
Press Release
Washington, D.C. – Election day is November 5, 2024, and DCNOW has made the following endorsements for the D.C. Council:
- Robert White (Democrat) – For re-election to his At-Large seat
- Christina Henderson (Independent) – For re-election to her At-Large seat
- Brooke Pinto (Democrat) – For re-election to her Ward Two seat
- Janeese Lewis-George (Democrat) – For re-election to her Ward Four seat
Since D.C. registered voters can choose two At-Large candidates, they can vote for both White and Henderson.
Initiative 83, which would bring ranked-choice voting (RCV) to the District of Columbia, will also be on the ballot this November. DCNOW supports RCV and wrote about it in the following blog pieces: “Overview of Ranked Choice Voting (Ranked Choice Voting Part One),” “Bring Ranked Choice Voting to Washington, D.C. (Ranked Choice Voting Part Two),” and “Update on Ranked-Choice Voting and D.C.” However, since Initiative 83 would create a semi-open primary election, DCNOW does not support this initiative.
November 5, 2024, is the exact 50th anniversary of the date that D.C. voters elected their Mayor and D.C. Council under D.C.’s current home rule. November 5, 1974, marked the first time that they voted for their city government in over 100 years. 105,183 of D.C.’s 273,000 registered voters (marking a voter turnout rate of 38.5 percent) selected Walter Washington as D.C.’s first Mayor of the home rule era. Washington was the first African-American mayor of a major U.S. city, just as later, D.C.’s Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly became the first African-American female Mayor of a major urban city and D.C.’s current Mayor Muriel Bowser became the first African-American female Mayor to be elected to three four-year terms as a mayor of a U.S. city.
November 5, 2024, is also the first Presidential general election since the 50th anniversary of Shirley Chisholm’s historic Presidential run of 1972. In that race, Chisholm was the first African-American female to run for the Democratic or Republican political party Presidential nomination. This first African-American female Member of Congress lost in the Democratic presidential primaries. The 2024 election cycle features Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation’s first non-Caucasian or part-non-Caucasian Presidential nominee and the first racial-ethnic minority female Presidential nominee.
If Harris wins:
- Harris would make history again, becoming the first female President, the first Asian President, and the first Democratic President from California.
- Her husband Doug Emhoff would be the U.S.’s first First Gentleman and first Jewish member of the First Couple (President and First Lady).
- Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would be the first Nebraska-born Democratic Vice President. Gerald Ford (VP to Richard Nixon) and Dick Cheney (VP to George W. Bush) were the U.S.’s Republican Nebraska-born VPs.
- Harris would be the first VP of a VP to be President since Ford.
- She would be set to lead the U.S. when the U.S. turns 250 years old in 2026.
- The U.S. would be set to have a racial-ethnicity minority President or Vice President during 16 of the 20 years between 2009 and 2029.
On November 5, 2025, let’s try to double D.C.’s 1974 mayoral voter turnout rate of 38.5 percent. The voter turnout rates for the past two presidential general election years (2024 is one.) were and 65.3 percent (2016) and 66.9 percent (2020). Home rule is currently under attack, as was described in DCNOW’s blog pieces, entitled “Trying to End Home Rule” and “Congress Again Tries to Overrule a D.C. Regulation and End D.C. Home Rule.” It must be preserved.
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