Washington, D.C. Megathread

[Nutmeg]

If Catania looses by a respectable margin (2-6 points), what will his future hold?

I haven't seen any polls on name recognition or favorability, but anecdotally Catania seems to have low name recognition considering that he's held citywide office for 16 years.  This actually seems to be a problem most of the at-large councilmembers face; people know their Ward councilmember quite well, while the 4 at-large members float by unnoticed because they aren't involved in constituent affairs for the most part. Therefore I'd say Catania returns to his day job as corporate consultant and maybe runs against Vincent Orange (and David Grosso) for another at-large seat in 2 years.

[Nutmeg]

I suspect Bowser will win wards 4, 5, 7, and 8, while Catania will win 1, 2, 3, and 6.

This turned out to be correct, except Ward 1 (my home) went for Bowser but had the closest margin of any ward.

[Nutmeg]

Here is a map of the election; shades of green are Catania, shades of blue are Bowser.

Bowser won by winning alot of the predominantly black precincts that she lost in the primary. She completely swept the eastern part of the district, too.

So basically a map of race in D.C. It's similar to the 2010 Grey-Fenty map, too.

Except how did Bowser win the West End/Foggy Bottom? High Schwartz vote?

[Nutmeg]

This map is pretty telling about the future of DC elections though.  Almost all the precincts Catania won are heavy growth areas... particularly in ward 2 (where dupont/logan/u street are located) while almost all the precincts Bowser won are losing population fast (eastern part)...  Looks like the wards that were close have had stable populations but this is only because there has been a big net loss in the black population cancelled out by a big net gain in the white population + hispanics/asians (I'm thinking capitol hill area). 

Seems almost certain that DC will have a white mayor within the next 20 years.

I agree in general.

Bowser did win some precincts near U Street, it looks like (although I admit I'm not really sure from the map where some of the precincts align to streets/neighborhoods).

While the wards with white councilmembers definitely are growing faster than those with black councilmembers, only Ward 8 lost population between 2000 and 2010 (and I suspect there might have been a rebound since 2010).

Here's a table showing, by ward: population growth*; race of councilmember; 2014 mayoral result:
1:  3.8  white  Bowser (the outlier)
2:  21.0  white  Catania
3:  4.7  white  Catania
4:  1.0  black  Bowser
5:  3.8  black  Bowser
6:  7.2  white  Catania
7:  2.5  black  Bowser
8:  -0.5  black  Bowser
* Percentage change, 2000 to 2010 (and although I couldn't find data, I wonder what these figures would look like for 2010 to 2014).

I agree that it's probably a matter of time before D.C. has a white mayor. I think Catania's Republican past (even though he was elected citywide as a Republican multiple times!) and personality both really hurt him in this year's race. It's kind of a mystery to me, though: I seriously doubt a white candidate, even with a good personality, could win a Democratic mayoral primary now or in the near future. But at the same time, the D.C. Council is majority white, and the white council chairman was just reelected overwhelmingly. So it's almost as though there's some kind of entropy that applies only to the mayor's race -- I've heard many people, both black and white, say that the mayor of D.C. should be black, and so that's why they voted for Bowser rather than one of the white candidates in either the primary or general. At the same time, no one seems to have an emotional stake in the Council races, thus enabling the unexpected white majority.

Also on that map I'm finding the colors really disorienting -- Bowser's whole brand is green, while Catania's is light blue.

[Nutmeg]

What is Bowser's stance on rights for Koopas? This is important to me. Was the Koopa vote critical in Bowser's victory?

One of the candidates running to succeed Bowser in her council seat is named Cooper; I kinda hope he gets traction for that alone.

[Nutmeg]

Nutmeg, would you consider renaming this into a megathread?

My pleasure.

[Nutmeg]

What is Bowser's stance on rights for Koopas? This is important to me. Was the Koopa vote critical in Bowser's victory?

One of the candidates running to succeed Bowser in her council seat is named Cooper; I kinda hope he gets traction for that alone.

And A.J. Cooper, at the age of 34, actually died today, apparently of a heart attack. He probably was one of the top few candidates in name recognition to succeed Bowser.