DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson may not seem a Yoda doppelganger: He lacks pointy ears; he is also considerably taller and much younger than the Star Wars Jedi Master. What’s more, compared to the Galactic Republic, DC’s government is barely a blink, having hit only 50 in January 2025 — thankfully, that celebration came without a UFC cage in front of the John A. Wilson Building and 1 a.m. fireworks burning the sky over the Washington Monument.
Still, the primary election earlier this week will likely bring Mendelson closer to Yoda’s role of teacher and mentor to a cadre of unseasoned and/or unpolished political players and bureaucrats. As the Democratic nominee in deep blue DC, he is likely to win another four-year term and become the longest-serving elected official in the District’s quasi-independent government.
Before first being elected as an at-large councilmember in 1998, he worked for former Ward 3 Councilmember Jim Nathanson. Later, he joined the staff of Council Chair David Clarke, who died from a brain tumor while in office. He also served for many years as an advisory neighborhood commissioner
No one currently holding office — nor anyone who may assume new positions in the local government in January 2027 — has the breadth or depth of Mendelson’s experience and knowledge of some of the city’s most arcane laws, rules and regulations. As evidence of his prowess in that area, during at least one previous campaign he was labeled “nitpicker” by political operatives and observers. He and the union leaders who supported him back then — including the currently controversial Joslyn Williams, the former head of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO — turned that negative characteristic into a positive one.
“Mendelson will be stronger than ever; he ran unopposed. [He] could be a power center,” said Bernard Demczuk, a civil rights activist who since the 1980s has served as a political consultant to the city’s mayors beginning with Marion Barry and continuing to Muriel Bowser.
“Historically, the person with the most institutional knowledge has the clout,” said Bill Lightfoot, a former at-large councilmember who also has been a central political figure for decades, serving as chair for Adrian Fenty’s mayoral campaign and later for each of Bowser’s elections since 2014.
“The person who has the most knowledge of the budget and the budget process has [even] greater power,” added Lightfoot.
Once upon a time, that would have been former Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans; he attempted a return to the legislature in this political cycle but withdrew when it seemed clear he had not collected the requisite number of voter signatures to qualify him for the ballot. Mendelson ran into campaign finance and ethics trouble when he used government resources to make copies of Evans’ flawed petitions for a formal challenge to get his opponent off the ballot. The Office of Campaign Finance subsequently cited Mendelson for the violation and ordered him to pay a $4,000 fine, which he did, promptly.
As of Thursday, the DC Board of Elections in its preliminary tally reported Mendelson had received 77,070 votes, which amount to 95.64% of the ballots counted so far in the Democratic Primary for chair; 24,920 ballots were not marked in that race, however. He may have cleared the bar for the primary, but he could face opposition in the November general election. Independents seeking office started picking up petitions last week, with more than a dozen individuals so far eyeing runs for delegate, mayor, at-large councilmember or council chair. The deadline to return those is Aug. 5.
At-large Councilmember Robert White, who is running to become DC delegate — the third in the city’s history since Congress approved the position in the late 1960s — likewise won the Democratic nomination in his race, with 63,691 or 62.9% of the votes counted thus far.
Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin and Ward 5’s Zachary Parker also prevailed in the Democratic primary — the former having been uncontested, the latter easily defeating two challengers. Proving the adage that “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” Ward 6’s Charles Allen — also the victor in a three-person race — is poised to become the second-longest-serving member if he wins in November.
Allen came to DC politics as chief of staff to Tommy Wells, who was elected as Ward 6 councilmember in 2006. Allen ran to fill Wells’ job when the latter left to run for mayor. Wells lost that bid, but Bowser hired him to lead the Department of Energy and Environment. He left the position to become director of the Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs in the mayor’s office. His wings were clipped by Beverly Perry, top special adviser to Bowser. Wells soon retired.
Last year, however, Wells signed on as chair of Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George’s mayoral campaign.
In the unofficial results released late Tuesday night, Lewis George had received 50,260 votes (52.79%). By Thursday, with more ballots counted, that number increased to 55,214 votes (52.85%). McDuffie was a distant second and was never able to catch up. As of Thursday he had 38,033 votes (36.42%). Unsurprisingly, he conceded that morning, announcing that he had called Lewis George and wished her well.
