Robert White Set to Be D.C.’s Congressional Delegate After Contentious Race

District of Columbia Council member Robert White has jumped out to a commanding lead in D.C.’s primary election for U.S. House delegate, putting him on the brink of victory after a contentious race.

After nearly three hours of waiting for results Tuesday night in a Buzzard Point restaurant, White and his team gathered around a laptop to review the initial vote count. The results showed him at 63% of the vote thus far. His primary challenger, Ward 2 Council member Brooke Pinto, sat at 21%. Minutes later, just before 11 p.m., White said Pinto called to concede the race.

White is all but certain to succeed the District’s longtime delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, as three in four D.C. voters are registered Democrats, according to city Board of Elections data. Though White is claiming victory and Pinto has conceded, officials have warned that final results could be delayed by the District’s new ranked-choice voting system.

“D.C., we did it,” White, 44, announced to a packed room of supporters. “For 36 years, D.C.’s ‘Warrior on the Hill’ fought for us ... I promise you that I will carry your legacy forward.”

White was formerly a staffer for Norton, the District’s second-ever delegate to Congress. The position in the House of Representatives can debate and introduce legislation, but cannot vote. NOTUS broke the news of Norton’s retirement in January.

The competitive primary to succeed her was marked by record spending and barbs traded between frontrunners White and Pinto. Pinto’s campaign outspent White’s $1.1 million to $587,000 and raked in $1.5 million to White’s $683,000 in total as of May 27, according to a NOTUS analysis of campaign finance reports filed ahead of the June 16 primary.

“We don’t need as much money,” White told NOTUS before the results were announced. “People around the city know my name and know my work, so we don’t have to buy that.”

The remark hints at a string of spats between White and Pinto in recent months. While all five Democratic candidates for delegate largely agreed on a platform of resisting federal overreach and securing D.C. statehood, the race got exceedingly personal.

Pinto and White targeted each other for receiving money from donors who also gave to Trump. White picked on Pinto for being a recent transplant to the city, leveraging his generations-deep roots in the District.

But Pinto brought tensions to a fever pitch in April when she posted a 67-page “opposition research report” to her website that included pictures of White’s home, his address and personal information about his family members. On social media, White called on Pinto to withdraw.

“It was out of bounds then and it’s out of bounds now,” White said Tuesday. “This is not a time where city leaders can be divided or petty. We’ve got to move forward because the future of our city, and frankly, the future of our democracy are at risk.”