By Adam Pagnucco.
If the county’s progressive movement has a principal leader, that person may be Will Jawando. He has long had political talent – he is good looking and charismatic, he is a superior public speaker, he is adept at raising money and if he ever gets on a statewide stage, look out. But now he has matched that talent with a progressive policy agenda and strong electoral results. With Nancy Navarro leaving the council, he will become the point person on racial equity. With Tom Hucker leaving the council, he will probably become the point person on tenants’ rights (although Kristin Mink is going to play there too). And while he lost his first two elections – District 20 delegate in 2014 and Congressional District 8 in 2016 – he has followed those losses with successful runs for council at-large.
Jawando has always had a future. How far can he go?
We will explore that question later in this post but let’s start with what happened this year. Jawando earned 80,193 votes for council at-large in the Democratic primary, finishing second behind Evan Glass. His 17.2% of the vote ranks 7th in council at-large races since 1998 and is just behind Marc Elrich’s first place performance in 2010 (17.8%). He earned every influential progressive endorsement, including almost all the unions, the Sierra Club, Progressive Maryland and Casa in Action and even got the grudging endorsement of the Washington Post. He switched from public financing last time to traditional financing this time and raised a respectable $343,297 for the cycle, proving that he can raise money in any system. All of this deserves respect.
The chart below shows Jawando’s results by local area and region. Bars in dark green show a first place finish. Bars in Kelly green are second. Bars in light green are third and bars in yellow are fourth.
Jawando finished first in Takoma Park, Silver Spring Downtown, Silver Spring East County, Glenmont/Norbeck and Burtonsville. These are all places with large Black and brown populations and they resemble Elrich’s geographic base. He finished fourth in Potomac, Damascus and Dickerson, all of which are majority White.
Let’s look at that racial split more closely. The chart below shows how Jawando did in the county’s racially concentrated precincts. (See my methodology post for definitions.) Again, bars in dark green show a first place finish, bars in Kelly green show a second place finish and bars in light green show a third place finish.
Jawando finished first in the heavily Black precincts, second in the Latino precincts and third in the Asian and White precincts. This confirms his geographic numbers above.
What about the future? Jawando and all other Black politicians in MoCo will forever be compared to former County Executive Ike Leggett, who more than any other single person has shepherded the county to its current status as a majority-minority jurisdiction. Here’s something about Leggett: he wasn’t just a Black politician – he had lots of support from voters in every racial group.
Want some evidence? In 2014, Leggett was challenged by former County Executive Doug Duncan and District 3 Council Member Phil Andrews, two quality opponents. In that race, Leggett crushed both Duncan and Andrews in Burtonsville and Silver Spring East County, the two areas with the highest concentrations of Black voters in the county. But he also beat them in Bethesda, Brookeville, Cabin John, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Potomac and Sandy Spring, all of which have White majorities. Leggett’s percentage margins over Duncan were 11 points in Cabin John, 16 points in Bethesda and 17 points in Chevy Chase. Combine those kinds of performances in White areas with his domination of the Route 29 corridor and that made Leggett hard to beat, even for Duncan and Andrews.
Now imagine Jawando in a hypothetical executive or congressional race against multiple opponents winning by double digits in Bethesda and Chevy Chase. That’s right, it wouldn’t happen – at least not today.
Jawando is a super-talented politician who would be a force in a race for higher office. He might even be able to win a tight race for executive or Congress right now. But if he wants to climb Leggett Mountain, he needs to broaden his appeal. If he can do that, the sky is the limit for Will Jawando.