10 candidates are in the running for an at-large D.C. Council seat, where the incumbent isn't running for the first time in more than 12 years.
Councilmember Anita Bonds is not seeking reelection. Nine Democrats and one Republican are vying to take her place.
7News asked each candidate:
- What is the most pressing issue in the District?
- What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
- Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
- What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
Below are their responses, in the order the candidates appear on the ballot:
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY:
Four of the nine D.C. Council At-Large Democratic candidates: Dwight Davis, Candace Nelson, Leniqua'dominique Jenkins and Fred Hill (7News)
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: The most pressing issue in the District is the absence of a high-performing school in every ward. Education is a force multiplier. It drives public safety, economic stability, healthcare outcomes, and civic participation simultaneously. Every other crisis we are managing, unemployment and a future-ready workforce, displacement, violence, has an educational root. I will be the person on council to address these issues at the root. The education lense is missing.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: Affordability requires three things working together: protecting residents already here, producing housing that working families can actually afford, and streamlining the government processes that make development unnecessarily expensive.
The start of my affordability plan requires more workforce housing covenants in every development receiving public subsidy, zoning relief, or tax incentives. No public value without public benefit. I will strengthen tenant purchase rights so residents have a real path to ownership before displacement occurs. And I will advance the Government as a Service permitting model that reduces carrying costs for developers, creating fiscal room for deeper affordability without reducing project viability.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: The ideal relationship begins with statehood. DC residents are not subjects of Congress. They are citizens who deserve full representation and full self-governance. I will pursue statehood as the civil rights imperative it is, and govern in the meantime as if our autonomy is non-negotiable, because it is.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: Within current budget constraints, the most effective short-term strategy is deploying the right responder to every situation and activating the corridors where crime is most concentrated.
I will expand mental health responders, violence interrupters, and community aides through the Office of Unified Communications immediately, redirecting existing resources toward responders equipped to resolve the non-criminal calls that currently consume MPD capacity. This frees officers for serious violent and property crime without requiring new hiring.
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: Affordability is the most pressing issue facing the District because it touches nearly every aspect of life. Residents are struggling with the cost of housing, childcare, groceries, healthcare, and transportation. Too many people who work in DC can no longer afford to live here. We need a city where working families, seniors, young professionals, and longtime residents can stay and thrive. My focus is on affordable housing, strong public schools, accessible healthcare, and a government that works better for the people it serves.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: Making DC more affordable requires addressing both the cost of living and people's ability to earn a living. I support increasing housing options, including workforce and affordable housing, while strengthening pathways to homeownership and protecting renters from displacement.
We also need to help residents earn family-sustaining wages. I support increasing Summer Youth Employment Program wages to at least the District's minimum wage, strengthening workforce development programs, expanding apprenticeship opportunities, and creating stronger connections between education and careers.
Finally, we must make it easier to start, grow, and sustain a small business in the District. Streamlining permitting, licensing, and contracting processes will help entrepreneurs create jobs and grow our local economy. Affordability means ensuring people can find housing they can afford, earn wages that support a stable life, and access economic opportunities that allow them to build a future in the city.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: The District and federal government should have a professional, respectful relationship built on partnership and mutual respect. However, protecting DC's interests requires more than simply reacting to decisions made in Congress or the White House. It requires a coordinated strategy.
I believe the Council should establish an Office of Federal Affairs to help build relationships with Congress, monitor federal actions that impact the District, coordinate legislative advocacy, and ensure the Council speaks with a more unified voice on issues affecting Home Rule and DC residents.
We must also strengthen coordination among the District's executive, legislative, and judicial branches. One of the most effective tools we have had in protecting Home Rule and local authority has been the Office of the Attorney General's work in the courts. The District should continue supporting legal strategies that defend our laws, our budget autonomy, and the rights of DC residents.
The ideal relationship involves working collaboratively with federal partners whenever possible, but remain prepared to advocate, organize, and litigate when necessary to protect the interests of the District and all of us who live here.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: In the short term, we must take a balanced approach that combines effective policing, strong oversight, and prevention. We should continue efforts to recruit and retain officers so MPD can move closer to the staffing levels needed to meet the city's public safety demands. Reducing vacancies will improve response times, strengthen neighborhood policing, and reduce costly overtime that places additional strain on the District's budget.
At the same time, we must strengthen oversight and accountability. Public trust has been damaged by concerns regarding MPD's coordination with ICE and questions about the accuracy and transparency of crime data. Effective public safety requires both safe communities and public confidence in the institutions responsible for protecting them.
We must also continue investing in violence interruption, youth programming, workforce development, and behavioral health services that help prevent crime before it occurs.
Success should be measured through clear performance metrics, including reductions in violent crime and property crime, improved emergency response times, higher crime clearance rates, reductions in officer vacancies and overtime costs, and increased public confidence in MPD. Throughout my career, I have developed agency performance plans, created key performance indicators, managed contracts, and helped agencies improve outcomes through data-driven decision making. As a Councilmember, I will bring that same approach to public safety by setting measurable goals, public.
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: The most pressing issue facing the District is affordability.
Too many residents are struggling to build and sustain a life in the city they love. Young families are questioning whether they can afford to stay, working residents are feeling squeezed by rising housing and living costs, caregivers are carrying enormous financial and emotional burdens, and many seniors worry they will not be able to age in place in the communities they helped build.
These challenges are deeply connected. When housing costs rise faster than incomes, families have less money for childcare, healthcare, transportation, and caregiving responsibilities. When seniors cannot afford property taxes, home repairs, or supportive services, they are pushed out of neighborhoods where they have lived for decades.
The data is clear. Nearly 38% of District households are housing-cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Among renters, that number rises to nearly 48%.
My platform focuses on helping residents thrive at every stage of life through affordable housing, aging-in-place initiatives, support for caregivers, workforce development, and economic opportunity.
The goal is simple: whether you are raising a family, caring for a loved one, starting a career, or aging in place, you should be able to build a future in Washington, D.C. without being priced out of your community.
A city is only affordable if people can live here, raise a family here, care for loved ones here, and grow old here. That's the standard I will use when evaluating every policy before the Council.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: My affordability agenda focuses on four priorities.
First, protecting longtime residents from being priced out of their communities by expanding property tax relief programs for seniors and low- to moderate-income homeowners and supporting aging-in-place initiatives.
Second, increasing housing production at every income level. The District cannot solve affordability without building more housing, especially workforce and affordable housing near transit and employment centers.
Third, creating jobs and strengthening our local economy. The District has long been heavily reliant on the federal government as an employer. While federal jobs remain important, we must diversify our economy by supporting growth in technology, healthcare, hospitality, skilled trades, entrepreneurship, and other emerging industries. A stronger private sector creates more opportunities for residents and makes our city more economically resilient.
Fourth, supporting small businesses and reducing everyday costs for residents. Small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods and commercial corridors. We should make it easier, not harder, for entrepreneurs to start, grow, and sustain businesses in the District. At the same time, we must improve access to childcare, workforce development programs, and transportation options so families can keep more of what they earn.
As an At-Large Councilmember, I will focus on policies that help residents build economic security while ensuring that growth benefits all eight wards. Affordability is not just about housing, it is about ensuring residents have access to good-paying jobs, thriving small businesses, and a pathway to economic stability.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: The District and federal government should operate as strong partners with mutual respect.
The federal government is the District's largest employer and owns a significant portion of District land. This requires ongoing coordination on public safety, transportation, emergency management, economic development, and infrastructure.
At the same time, District residents deserve leaders who will advocate for home rule and ensure decisions affecting our communities are informed by the people who live here.
My approach is simple: collaborate where our interests align, advocate firmly when they do not, and always put District residents first.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: With current staffing and budget challenges, we must focus resources where they produce the greatest impact.
First, we must ensure there is accountability when people harm others or victimize our communities. Residents deserve a justice system that is fair, consistent, and sends a clear message that violent crime and repeat offenses will have consequences.
Second, we must strengthen partnerships between MPD, federal law enforcement agencies, violence interruption programs, and community organizations to identify and address repeat violent offenders.
Third, we must invest in prevention by expanding youth engagement, workforce opportunities, mentoring programs, and community-based intervention efforts in neighborhoods experiencing the highest levels of violence.
Public safety requires both accountability and prevention. We must address root causes while ensuring individuals who commit serious offenses are held responsible for their actions.
Success should be measured through reductions in violent crime, robberies, car thefts, and burglaries; improved case clearance rates; fewer repeat offenders cycling through the system; faster emergency response times; and resident surveys demonstrating increased feelings of safety.
Crime has declined significantly over the past year, including substantial reductions in violent crime, homicides, robberies, and property crime. My goal is to build on that progress while ensuring residents actually experience and feel those improvements in their daily lives.
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: The District is too reliant on a single economic driver — the federal government — and that dependence has become a serious risk. When federal payrolls, contracts, or staffing decline, DC’s revenue declines with them, threatening the funding for schools, public safety, and basic services. We cannot keep building the city’s finances on a foundation we do not control. The most urgent challenge is diversifying our economy. By growing sectors like AI, cybersecurity, and biotech, and by revitalizing a downtown that remains central to the District’s economy, we can make our prosperity less vulnerable to decisions made on Capitol Hill.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: Affordability in DC is fundamentally a housing supply problem, and I have spent more than a decade working in the land-use process as Chair of the Board of Zoning Adjustment. I would increase housing at every income level by streamlining a permitting and approval process that is too slow and too costly, and by speeding up the conversion of vacant downtown office space into homes. I would also protect the affordable housing we already have and expand opportunities for working families and first-time buyers to become homeowners. Building more homes, more quickly, is the most direct way to reduce costs.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: The ideal relationship is simple: DC statehood. Until then, the District should govern its own local affairs, and the federal government should respect that while both work together as true partners on shared priorities. But cooperation cannot come at the expense of self-governance. Federalization orders, National Guard deployments expected to continue through 2026, congressional interference in our local tax code, and a wave of anti–Home Rule riders are not signs of partnership — they are examples of overreach. Until DC achieves statehood, I will work with Congress and the administration whenever doing so benefits District residents.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: My public safety plan has two parts. First, I would fully staff MPD by prioritizing recruitment and retention, even within tight budget limits, because a visible police presence is essential to a safe city. Second, I would invest in violence interruption and prevention programs that reduce crime before it happens at far lower cost than responding after the fact. Public safety is also tied to economic growth: a city that feels unsafe cannot attract businesses, revive downtown, or encourage residents and visitors to stay and spend. I would measure success not only by lower crime rates, but also by stronger economic activity — more businesses opening, a healthier downtown, and greater confidence in living, working, and investing in the District.
Three of the nine D.C. Council At-Large Democratic candidates: Oye Owolewa, Dyana Forester and Lisa Raymond (7News)
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: Affordability is the defining crisis facing DC residents right now. Federal job cuts are gutting household incomes, out-of-town billionaires are extracting wealth from our communities, and poorly managed budgets have left too many residents without a safety net. As DC's Shadow Representative, I have watched this play out in real time - the cost of living is pushing out the very people who built DC, and that has to stop.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: As a pharmacist, I see every day how the cost of healthcare forces families to make impossible choices. We need to bring jobs back to DC, expand rent stabilization so new and long-term residents can stay in their homes, and ensure every resident has access to reliable, affordable healthcare. Affordability is not one issue, it is the thread that connects housing, employment, and health. My approach addresses all three together because you cannot solve one without the others.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: As DC's Shadow Representative, I have spent years fighting for DC's place at the federal table. We will partner with anyone who genuinely wants to work alongside DC residents to build the DC we deserve, one that centers people, community, and shared prosperity. If the federal government wants that partnership, we are ready. But if they choose to send troops to occupy our streets, let Musk and Bezos take a hatchet to our economy, and treat DC residents as an afterthought, we will stand up and fight back. That is not a partnership - that is occupation, and we refuse to accept it.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: As a former ANC commissioner in Ward 8, I know firsthand that no one describes one ward as safer than another because of police numbers, they describe it because of investment levels. The evidence is clear: when communities have resources, jobs, and programming, violent and property crime drops. That means protecting youth programming, expanding job training, and creating real pathways to economic stability for young and adult learners alike. We will also push back on the federal government's use of MPD time and overtime for its own priorities - local safety dollars should be keeping local people safe. We will measure success by crime rates, youth program enrollment, and employment numbers in our most impacted communities.
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: Affordability. Too many of us (teachers, caregivers, service workers, longtime neighbors) are being priced out of the city we love. Everything else, from safe streets to strong schools, depends on whether working people can actually afford to stay here.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: Affordability isn't theoretical for me. I moved apartment to apartment with my daughters before the Ella Jo Baker Co-Op gave me the stability to become a homeowner in Ward 7. On the Council, I'll strengthen TOPA so tenants can fight displacement, expand deeply affordable housing, and create commercial rent-stability incentives, so small businesses don't get squeezed out of their own neighborhoods. I'll also pair wage growth with real workforce training and apprenticeships, so good jobs are within reach for the people who've always called DC home.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: DC should govern itself - full stop. I'm a longtime statehood advocate, and I'll use this seat to defend Home Rule and push back hard whenever Washington tries to override our voters, our budget, or our laws. That includes standing up against unauthorized ICE operations and protecting our immigrant neighbors. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, that fight is personal to me too. When DC can't govern itself, working-class residents and communities of color pay the price first.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: Public safety is personal for me. My mom was a DC police officer, and I've also lost loved ones to violence, so I understand both sides of this issue. Even with budget and staffing constraints, I'll push for use-of-force transparency, continued investment in Crisis Intervention Teams, and co-responder programs that send mental health professionals (not armed officers) to the calls that need them. I'll fight to fully fund the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and hold it accountable for results.
As for measuring success, I don't trust dashboards that just count arrests. I want to track victim satisfaction, recidivism, response times, and how safe residents actually feel, especially women, youth, and communities that experience both crime and police misconduct as twin threats. Real safety means people aren't afraid of violence or of the people sworn to protect them.
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: The most pressing issue facing the District is affordability, and for families that crisis hits on two fronts at once: housing and childcare. Too many people who work in DC cannot afford to live here, and too many parents are paying more for childcare than they pay in rent, if they can find a slot at all. I see the human cost every day in my work at Covenant House, where young people land in our shelter system because their families could not hold onto stable housing. When a family cannot afford a home or care for their kids, everything else we care about gets harder, from keeping children in a school that works for them, to keeping our neighborhoods safe, and to keeping our workforce here. That is the crisis I am running to fix.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: It starts with housing - the biggest bill in nearly every household budget. My plan is to build more homes of every kind, in every Ward, especially near transit. That means legalizing duplexes, triplexes, and small apartment buildings, cutting permitting delays, eliminating minimum parking requirements, and stopping the bad-faith appeals that tie projects up for years and drive up costs. More supply brings down prices across the market, but it will never be enough for our lowest-income neighbors on its own, so I will protect and grow the Housing Production Trust Fund with a focus on the households facing the largest gap, and invest in permanent supportive housing. The rising costs of childcare are also crippling families trying to build a life in The District. I will fight to fully fund the Birth-to-Three Act and the Child Care Pay Equity Fund, because parents cannot work if they cannot afford care, and childcare workers cannot stay in the field on poverty wages. I support expanding the District's Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, proven tools that put money directly back in working families' pockets. And I will push for energy upgrades like rooftop solar in affordable housing so lower-income residents see smaller utility bills, too. Making DC affordable means attacking costs on every front while growing the economy that pays for it.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: We have to start with the reality we are living in. This White House and this Congress have shown they are willing to interfere with our laws, our budget, our police, and our elected officials, and that interference has real consequences for DC residents and for our economy, including the more than 22,000 federal jobs we lost last year. So the first job of any Councilmember right now is to protect this city and our residents. I will work with the Mayor and the full Council as a unified front, use the Council's oversight power to make any federal interference fully transparent, and make sure the offices that defend DC in court and on the Hill are fully funded. I will not trade away our autonomy, our Human Rights Act, or our values for short-term wins.
That said, the ideal relationship is one of mutual respect between equals, which ultimately means statehood. The federal government should be a partner on the things only it can provide
and stay out of decisions that belong to the people who live here. There is some room to work together, even now. The federal government is our largest landowner and was long our largest employer, and we should cooperate on infrastructure, on converting empty federal office buildings downtown, on security for national events, and on regional priorities like Metro. Where this Administration acts in good faith, I will engage in good faith.
But cooperation cannot mean capitulation. The only lasting answer to federal interference is equal democratic standing, and I will keep fighting for statehood and full voting rights until the 700,000 Americans who call DC home have the same voice as every other American.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: With a tight budget and an understaffed police force, the short-term answer is to use what we have far more effectively. That means shifting tasks away from officers that others can handle. I will push to expand DC's co-responder program and improve 911 triage so trained mental health professionals take the lead on behavioral health and nonviolent calls, freeing sworn officers to focus on violent crime and the small number of people driving most of it. Putting officers where the data says violence concentrates is the highest-return use of a stretched force; combining this targeted approach with community policing builds trust, and will further reduce crime.
Retention is the cheapest recruitment strategy we have. Every effective, experienced officer we keep is one we do not have to replace, so I will support retention incentives while we rebuild the hiring pipeline toward full strength.
On prevention, the fastest payoffs come from interrupting violence in the highest-risk neighborhoods, better lighting and activity on commercial corridors, youth programs during the hours when juvenile crime peaks, and reentry support for returning citizens, who are far less likely to reoffend with stable housing and a job. As Chief of Staff to the DC Attorney General, I saw restorative justice and mediation deliver better outcomes than prosecution alone in the appropriate juvenile cases, at a fraction of the cost of incarceration.
I will measure success with results, not budget line items: violent and property crime rates by police district, 911 response times for priority calls, closure rates for homicides and carjackings, the share of crisis calls handled by co-responders, officer attrition versus hiring, and recidivism among program participants. I will use the Council's oversight power to put that data in front of the public regularly, because residents deserve to know whether what we are funding is actually making them safer.
Two of the nine D.C. Council At-Large Democratic candidates: Kevin Chavous and Greg Jackson (7News)
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: The most pressing issue facing the District is our fiscal outlook. For years we’ve leaned on reserves to fund core programs, and that cushion is nearly gone. Revenues are growing slower than inflation, and for the first time in two decades the Council will have to make genuinely hard choices about where our money goes. Throughout my campaign, I’ve said where I’d start: eliminate chronically vacant positions that tie up local dollars across the financial plan, scrutinize sole-source contracts and push competitive bidding, and cut duplicative programs. We should find savings through government efficiency before we ever look at cutting essential services.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: We have to get vacant units occupied and build more of them. There are hard-working people who need stable housing while units sit empty, so I’ll use tax incentives and deferred loans to encourage commercial-to-residential conversions, and expand programs like the Home Purchase Assistance Program and Inclusionary Zoning so working- and middle-class families can actually access these units. We also have to build. I support upzoning our high-density commercial corridors for taller buildings and denser development near transit, along with updating residential zoning citywide to encourage multifamily construction, ADUs, and pop-up additions.”
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: DC needs and deserves not just home rule, but statehood, now. 700,000 residents pay federal taxes and deserve full control over our local laws and budget, and full voting representation in Congress. As DC’s elected voice on the DNC, I’ve raised statehood at the national level, and on the Council I’ll push it through legislation, coalition-building with our statehood delegation and allies in Congress, and a formal, aggressive response anytime Congress interferes with our laws. This is a governance issue and a democratic rights issue, and one I’m best suited to address as the only attorney in this race.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: With tight budgets, we have to be smart about where every officer and every dollar goes. In the short term, that means focusing enforcement on violent crime and repeat offenders, where a small number of people drive a large share of the harm. It means protecting our forensic lab’s accreditation so the U.S. Attorney can actually close cases. And it means consolidating our violence prevention programs, like Building Blocks DC, Cure the Streets, and Pathways, under a single Crime Prevention Director so intervention groups coordinate instead of duplicating each other. That’s not a new spending program. That’s making what we already fund work.
Our force is lean, but the answer isn’t mass hiring we can’t afford. It’s deploying the officers we have where they matter most. That means moving sworn officers out of administrative roles that civilians can fill and back onto patrol, and recommitting to community policing so officers know their beats and neighborhoods trust the department.
Success is measurable: fewer homicides and carjackings, higher case closure rates, faster 911 response times, and lower repeat offenses among people who’ve cycled through the system. I’ll insist MPD publish those numbers so residents can hold all of us accountable.
Q: What is the most pressing issue in the District?
A: Public Safety. Our district suffered 187 homicides last year and the safety concerns have been used to justify militarizing our streets, deploying federal law enforcement, permanent curfews for our teens and so much more.
Q: What is your plan to make living in the District more affordable?
A: My plan is to focus on reducing the cost of living by creating more pathways to home ownership, supporting homeowners and increasing the supply of housing with an emphasis on smaller housing providers throughout the District.
Q: Describe what you see as the ideal relationship and level of cooperation between the District and the federal government.
A: The ideal relationship is one where DC can count on the federal government to respect its laws, respect its budget priorities, provide funding support, as well as coordination and alignment around larger federal activities and its impact on the local DC community.
Q: What are your short-term plans to address property and violent crimes in the District with the current budget restrictions and policing shortages? How will you measure success?
A: As the former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I was able to lead a national approach to violence that reduced homicides by 49%. As Councilmember, I want to bring that same playbook to DC by investing in crime gun intelligence, community violence intervention, resources to address the root causes of violence and disrupting the “iron pipeline” that has flooded our communities with illegal guns. One homicide costs our city $2 million, so investing in preventing violence reduces the burden of violent crime on our budget and should be a priority for every budget we pass.
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY:
D.C. Council At-Large Republican Candidate Darrell Green (7News)
Green did not respond to our request for comment by the time of posting.