Trayon White wants another chance. Ward 8 challengers say it’s time to move on

Unfortunate isn’t the word most people would use to describe elections, but that’s one prevailing sentiment in Ward 8, where a hotly contested special election for a vacant seat on the D.C. Council is pitting the expelled former incumbent against three challengers hoping voters can move past him.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re having this election right now,” said Mike Austin, one of the candidates, at a debate in Anacostia late last month. “The fact that we’re even hosting an election is an embarrassment to the city and Ward 8.”

“We are in an unfortunate situation, yes,” echoed Sheila Bunn, another candidate.

“Unfortunately we are in the situation we are,” conceded Trayon White, the incumbent-of-sorts who was expelled from the council in February over federal bribery charges. (He has pleaded not guilty, and goes on trial in January 2026.)

Misfortunes aside, for the last two months the four candidates have been knocking on doors, attending debates, and making their pitch to voters ahead of an unexpected election whose outcome is unpredictable. 

White touts the “unfinished business” he has on the council, arguing that his experience on the city’s legislature would make him best-positioned to reclaim the seat and fight for Ward 8’s priorities. But his challengers are uniformly asking voters to turn the page, arguing that while White is still presumed innocent, the ward’s significant problems could better be handled by someone who doesn’t have possible prison time hanging over their head.

“We have to move forward and go in a different direction,” said candidate Salim Adofo at the Anacostia debate. “Do we want to continue to deal with issues in the past? This is an opportunity to get some things moving forward.”

Moving forward, though, could be an unsteady slog.

White enjoys the power of incumbency; he served two full terms on the council, attracting periodic controversy while also being recognized as an effective communicator of his ward’s challenges. His federal indictment is a liability, but also an asset: Some of his supporters see it as yet another example of the government unjustly coming after a Black leader. Others are perturbed by the allegations that he agreed to accept $156,000 in bribes to help a D.C. businessman extend government contracts.

The challengers

The three challengers have all dramatically outraised and outspent White, largely because White hasn’t raised any money at all for his campaign. (Austin, Adofo, and Bunn are using the city’s public financing program.) White has also been a scant presence at candidate debates, appearing only twice. The former councilmember may be confident that despite a loss of some public support, he faces a fractured opposition that will divide up the vote against him.

Austin, Bunn, and Adofo don’t dwell on White’s legal troubles, in part because their campaigns haven’t crossed paths all that often. But at the recent debate in Anacostia, which White attended, Austin called the charges against the incumbent “deeply disturbing,” while Bunn said they were a “distraction from the real issues in our community.”

And those real issues are many. While the ward has seen development at the St. Elizabeths campus and the arrival of the new Cedar Hill Medical Center, unemployment stands above 13% – much higher than the citywide average of 5.8%. The median household income is roughly $50,000, half that in the rest of the city. In 2024, there were 53 homicides with a gun in Ward 8, accounting for one-third of the total across the city during the year.

Austin, an attorney who served as a staffer to former Ward 8 Councilmember LaRuby May (who herself lost to a vastly out-spent White in 2016), has put an emphasis on public safety, but not just on policing. “A lot of our crimes stem from economic insecurity,” he tells The 51st. “I want to create the jobs of tomorrow. That ties into public safety. If we can solve our economic challenges, we can drive down our public safety issues.”

He adds that one key element is strengthening enforcement of D.C.’s First Source law, which mandates that a certain number of jobs on city-funded projects be set aside for residents. “On paper they say they have all these jobs, but where are they going? They’re not always going to Ward 8 residents,” he says. “That’s why our residents feel disconnected from the progress in the city. First Source is the primary tool we have. I want to be creative and strengthen it.”

Bunn has worked in and around D.C. politics for decades, with stints in the office of D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, former mayor Vincent Gray, and Gray’s Ward 7 council office. She says she will prioritize ending Ward 8’s “food apartheid” by focusing on attracting more grocery stores, farmers markets, and sit-down restaurants. Bunn also wants more diverse housing in the ward.

“Ward 8 is oversaturated with affordable housing, so there are communities where there is a desire for market-rate housing. I want to make sure we are developing smartly but being intentional about protecting residents so we don’t don’t displace them when development happens,” she tells The 51st.

Bunn and Austin say that while they want to attract more amenities to the ward, they also understand that measures have to be taken to ensure that residents aren’t displaced once neighborhoods start revitalizing. Bunn wants to consider targeted property tax caps, an idea Austin says would be included in anti-displacement legislation he plans to introduce early in his term. (May, the former councilmember and his former boss, had a similar bill when she was in office.) 

“Development has always been the boogeyman, but it’s not a bad thing if we do it the right way,” Austin says.

Adofo, an ANC commissioner who unsuccessfully challenged White in the 2024 primary (he got 28% of the vote in a three-way race), agrees that bringing mixed-used development and amenities to Ward 8 is a significant issue – and one that will take educating residents about the benefits and drawbacks.

“We want to see more amenities, which means more people traveling, more parking restrictions. That’s just part of the development process. Because it hasn’t happened here there’s going to be a lot of political education so we can prepare people for that,” he tells The 51st.

Like his fellow challengers, Adofo says that public safety is top of mind in his campaign, but like Austin, he believes it encompasses more than police presence. He wants to ramp up enforcement of housing conditions so that residents have safe places to live. “A lot of folks are in apartments that are neglected and falling apart. People want a quality place to live that they can afford,” he says. “I want to see more inspections at the buildings we have. There’s an attitude you can get away with what you want in Ward 8 because there’s no enforcement.”

Trayon White’s pitch

White, for his part, has leaned heavily on his two terms in office as the reason Ward 8 voters should send him back. He says he helped secure funding for schools and rec centers, and played a role in bringing the Cedar Hill Medical Center to Ward 8. (Bunn says she was also instrumental in building the new hospital when she was a staffer for Gray.) 

“There are people talking the talk. If you look at my record, I’ve walked the walk,” he said at the Anacostia debate. (He did not respond to a request for an interview.) He also said that his past relationships with his council colleagues would pay dividends in pushing the ward’s priorities forward. “I know my colleagues very well,” he said.

But those relationships could remain strained if he returns to the Wilson Building. If White were to win on July 15, the council could move to expel him again, or otherwise keep him from chairing any committees – a critical position that allows lawmakers the power to control the flow of legislation and public dollars. At least one of White’s former colleagues seems unprepared to see him back on the dais: At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson introduced a bill this month that would prohibit lawmakers who are expelled from the body from serving again for five years.

Still, a proposal this week from Chairman Phil Mendelson to move more swiftly towards an expulsion vote if White is re-elected (largely by skipping the need for a formal investigation, and relying instead on the one done late last year) drew concerns from some lawmakers, who worried that it was coming too close to the actual election date. White made the same argument himself in an Instagram post.

“What the D.C. Council is trying to do to silence/persuade the voice of the voters by putting forth legislation days before an election is a clear case of election interference,” he wrote. “Is this not America? So one is not entitled to due process?”

Whether White gets back on the council will be left to Ward 8 voters. Mail ballots have already been sent to voters (and 2,465 have been returned as of July 2), and early voting begins on July 11 at four vote centers.

For other great coverage, make sure to read the Washington Informer’s profiles of Adofo, Austin, and Bunn; Hill Rag also has good blurbs on each of the candidates.