NEWS LOOSE LIPS
Playing the Dozens
Darrow Montgomery
Does former D.C. Council staffer Christina Henderson have chance to win an at-large seat over more than 20 challengers?
Christina Henderson By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals Christina Henderson is wa l k i ng through the quiet streets of Brookland, where she knows some people and where she’s hoping to get to know more. She passes houses displaying campaign signs for Ed Lazere and At-Large Councilmember Robert White— two of her challengers for the two at-large seats on the D.C. Council up for grabs this November—as she continues the monthslong slog of contactless canvassing, a more boring version of door knocking. Henderson, a former Council and current Capitol Hill staffer, is running as an independent against 22 other candidates in the general election. (Little-known candidate Rick Murphree dropped out last weekend and endorsed Henderson. His name will still appear on the ballot.) Some lawns are decked with the first-time candidate’s own purple signs. Others have signs for Joe Biden. And as she turns the corner onto 18th Street NE, she happens upon a lawn with three plain white signs indicating support for Marya Pickering, the only Republican
running in the crowded race. As the signs come into focus, so too does their owner, Peter Semler, who just so happens to be returning home with an acquaintance, Nestride Yumga, and a box of doughnuts from Dunkin’. His shirt is tucked into his underpants. Yumga recently drew public attention when she, along with Semler and a representative for Breitbart News, delivered lunch to the Metropolitan Police Department’s Second District Station. During the visit, Yumga falsely claimed that Black people are “the most violent race in America.” Henderson knows it’s useless to drop her literature on these folks, but she gives them a chipper “Hi, how are you?” “Good. Why don’t you support Marya Pickering?” asks Semler. “She’s the only one who’s gonna provide jobs and won’t sell us down the road to all the Northern Virginia White developers.” “Oh, OK, well, I’m Christina Henderson. I’m also running for the Council,” she responds. Semler again encourages her to drop out and support her Republican opponent, who he calls the “new Carol Schwartz.” He tells
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Henderson that Vincent Orange, another of her opponents, has her beat in campaign contributions (not true) and name recognition (likely true). He calls At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, Henderson’s former boss, the “most corrupt, dirty, unethical person we have.” He claims that Pickering is “more Democrat than any of the guys running,” and he says the city’s leaders think of residents in Northeast D.C. as “jungle bunnies.” (Pickering was one of a handful of people who attended the puny rally to push for reopening the local economy in May.) At one point, Semler briefly turns his back to Henderson and LL, and when he turns back around he’s wearing glasses with a camera attached. He yammers on about Yumga’s run for Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Ward 5, talks about “access to capital,” and name-drops City Paper owner Mark Ein before Henderson bids them adieu. “This is all your fault,” she tells LL jokingly. “You wanted to talk to the people with the Marya Pickering signs in the yard.” Henderson recognizes Yumga from the mini scandal with MPD earlier this year, but has never met Semler.
“You have Marya signs? Three of them jokers? You have a Trump sign in your yard?” Henderson says. “I don’t need to talk to you.” And so the walk continues. Henderson hangs campaign literature on front doors where her internal campaign data says likely voters live. She resists the urge to knock or ring doorbells, but she chats with the people she bumps into outside their homes. She’s running for a “more equitable D.C.,” she tells them. Most people smile and nod and go about their day. Henderson, 33, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to D.C. after earning an undergraduate degree from Furman University in South Carolina. She worked as a legislative staffer for Sen. Kay Hagan, earned a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University, and began working for Grosso in 2013. She served as his deputy chief of staff and later as committee director when he became chair of the education committee in 2015. Henderson left the Council in 2017 for her current job as a legislative assistant for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. She’ll take a leave of absence to focus on her Council campaign in the coming weeks. On this bright and sunny Saturday in Ward 5, Henderson is targeting older residents, who she believes will play a crucial role in the at-large race. “They’re like, ‘I want my same services that I already have. I don’t want my property taxes to go up. I like change, but not too much change,’” she says, in what sounds to LL like a reference to Lazere, a budget wonk who has locked up much of the support of the local progressive community, including that of his former employee, At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman. In March, Lazere stepped down from his post as executive director of the left-leaning think tank DC Fiscal Policy Institute to run for the at-large seat. Silverman worked for Lazere as a staffer before she was elected. Lazere challenged Council Chairman Phil Mendelson in 2018 and lost by nearly 27 points. Henderson has support from Grosso, who opted not to run for a third term, but she’s failed to get the stamp of approval from any other groups. A Washington Post article about the top at-large candidates quoted Grosso expressing his disappointment that liberal groups too quickly dismissed Henderson in favor of Lazere. Grosso, who is also canvassing for Henderson on this Saturday morning, adds that Lazere’s decadeslong history of testifying before the Council put him into a box. “We know where he stands, and you’re either gonna vote with him or not, but the fact of the matter is, he’s not going to easily change his mind,” Grosso says. “And I think with a politician, you want them to be able to look at both sides and say, ‘I was wrong in the beginning, and now I’ll do this.’ I think that’s what you get with Christina, and I don’t think you’ll get that with Ed at all.” “I just gotta get Christina up there so she can hold them all in line,” Grosso quips. “Especially that Mendelson dude.”
