Wendell Felder, a 33-year-old local political leader in Ward 7, has narrowly clinched the Democratic nomination in the heated Ward 7 D.C. Council race, the Associated Press projected Thursday — making him the likely successor to retiring council member Vincent C. Gray.
Washington, D.C
Wendell Felder projected to win D.C. Council Ward 7 nomination
Because of the relatively thin margins, the race took longer to call, as ballot-counting proceeded slowly at the D.C. Board of Elections after initial tabulations Tuesday night. Declaring victory at his watch party before the race had been called Tuesday night, Felder acknowledged the big shoes to fill as he thanked Gray, who endorsed Felder to succeed him.
“As the next Ward 7 council member, I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, and look forward to building on his legacy,” Felder said.
The crowded Ward 7 race was the banner contest in an otherwise low-key election year for D.C., which had just a few other local lawmakers on the ballot along with nonvoting federal representatives. Yet at a time when two other council members are facing recall efforts — and as residents have voiced escalating concerns about crime or issues such as education disparities — voters broadly opted for the status quo as incumbents coasted to victory. Council members Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8), Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) held off challengers, while council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) was unopposed. Ankit Jain, a voting rights attorney, is likely to join the federal delegation after his projected victory in a competitive Democratic nominating race for shadow senator against Eugene Kinlow, a former Bowser administration federal lobbyist.
The Ward 7 seat was open after Gray, the former mayor and council chair who has held public office since 2005, announced in December he would not seek reelection amid ongoing health challenges. Gray had a stroke in 2021, and another in late April, and has generally been less visible in the ward as a result of mobility and speech difficulties.
For some voters, Gray’s endorsement sealed their vote — especially as they were otherwise bombarded by mailers and campaign ads and calls and texts from the candidates.
“I just felt like with Vince Gray’s endorsement, it kind of leaned it more in his direction, especially given how crowded the field was,” said Larry Evans, a 50-year-old social worker who said hearing Felder discuss initiatives to reduce crime — a top issue for Evans — “resonated with me.”
Several voters who selected Felder said they believed he had the political connections needed to be effective on the council and described a retail politics style that felt personal.
Colleen Kincaid, who has lived in Hill East since 2016, said that after a shooting on her block in February, Felder showed up on her doorstep to see how she and her husband were doing. It was one of a number of shootings in her neighborhood this year, and their cars were pocked with bullet holes, she said.
“People were scared, looking for support, looking for ideas. He was the first one to show up,” she said at Felder’s election night party, blocks from her home. “That’s not just good politics — that’s good people.”
Felder’s campaign was not without stumbles. He raised eyebrows among Democrats and home-rule advocates when he told the ACLU in a questionnaire that if the D.C. Council passed a law with which he disagreed, he’d advocate for Congress to overturn it. Felder later called the response a mistake, while insisting in “no way, shape or form do I support congressional interference” — but overall, the flap didn’t prove consequential.
In an interview at his election night party, Felder cited aggressive canvassing and relationship-building as key to his victory, with a message that blended focusing on turning around public safety problems, boosting economic development and improving neighborhood schools. He said he had “a pair of shoes with a hole in them” due to hours spent door-knocking each week in the lead-up to the election.
Felder had previously worked in the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) as a community relations representative and in project management in her economic development office. Those roles, combined with some of the flashiest endorsements, made Felder the closest thing to the establishment candidate in the race, and moments after Felder declared victory, Bowser arrived to congratulate him Tuesday night.
But Felder’s win is far from decisive. He was projected to win with significantly less than 50 percent of the vote, according to unofficial returns from the D.C. Board of Elections — indicative of a highly splintered electorate that Felder will need to get behind him. Felder said the work to unite the ward was “just beginning,” adding he would also be reaching out to each of his opponents.
Ebony Payne, the founder of a medicinal herb business and a Kingman Park advisory neighborhood commissioner, and Eboni-Rose Thompson, president of the State Board of Education, were each trailing Felder by several hundred votes, according to unofficial returns.
For Ward 7 voters eager for change, some weren’t yet sure what to think about Felder but were willing to hear him out.
“For Wendell, I wondered if are there ways in which he’s an extension of Gray,” said Erin O. Crosby, a newer Ward 7 resident. “I think about my community and the changes that I would love to see, and I wonder if the community that I have is the result of past representation. Would Wendell be a changemaker, or an extension of that?”
Jasmine Hilton and Omari Daniels contributed to this report.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
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4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
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