Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Robert White won the Washington, D.C., delegate Democratic primary, setting him up to represent the United States capital in Congress as its first new delegate in more than 35 years.<\/p>\n
White\u2019s victory begins a new chapter for Washington, which has been represented in the House by Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton since 1991.<\/p>\n
He faces no major general election challengers in the deep-blue district and will ascend to a post that gives him a voice, but not a vote, to champion a city that has been roiled by President Donald Trump\u2019s attempts to exert pressure in his second term.<\/p>\n
White\u2019s ascension caps off a long career for Holmes Norton \u2014 for whom he used to work. Holmes Norton was known as a behind-the-scenes operator in Congress who helped restructure Washington\u2019s finances in the 1990s and brought major federal projects and jobs to the district. Holmes Norton\u2019s signature project was D.C. statehood, elevating it from a Washingtonian pipe dream to a mainstream Democratic issue culminating in House passage of statehood bills in 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n
But Holmes Norton\u2019s visibility and power waned in recent years, and questions about the 89-year-old\u2019s acuity and ability to serve drew a steady stream of headlines<\/a> in 2025. In October, D.C. police said that Holmes Norton was scammed out of more than $4,000, and an initial police report reportedly described her<\/a> as having \u201cearly stages of dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n A fifth-generation Washingtonian, White has served as an at-large member of the D.C. Council since 2016. He will be Washington\u2019s third delegate since the position was reestablished in 1970.<\/p>\n White ran against primary challenger and fellow Council member Brooke Pinto on a platform focused on increasing affordability and public safety while defending the district\u2019s autonomy \u2014 potentially setting him on a collision course with the president.<\/p>\n In an interview with POLITICO last week, White cast Trump\u2019s crime crackdown in the city, including federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of the National Guard and federal immigration agents, as \u201clawlessness\u201d and \u201cthe opposite of public safety.\u201d He also pledged to reintroduce a bill pushed for years by Holmes Norton that would grant command over the D.C. National Guard to the District\u2019s mayor rather than the president.<\/p>\n The contest at times grew ugly. In April, Pinto\u2019s campaign posted to her website<\/a> a 67-page opposition research dossier about White, including information about his family and finances. White demanded Pinto withdrawal<\/a> from the race, and Pinto\u2019s campaign replaced the file with a new version that omitted information about White\u2019s family, to whom Pinto apologized.<\/p>\n