If the 2010 D.C. Mayoral election ballots were recast now, a new poll says former Mayor Adrian Fenty would have kept his job.
Fenty now leads incumbent Mayor Vincent Gray by a 15-point margin among Democratic primary voters citywide, 48 to 33 percent, according to a recent polll conducted by the nonpartison Clarus Research Group. Among all voters, Fenty’s margin grows to an even wider 21 points (51-30 percent).
Gray, whose 2010 campaign is under federal investigation, isn't the only one who has been hurt by the scandals that have plagued city officials this year. Council Chairman Kwame Brown, whose 2008 campaign is under federal investigation, had the worst job approval rating among voters with 23 percent voting in the positive.
Second-worst in the city was the entire D.C. Council, with just a 30 percent job approval rating, even though the poll was taken this week while the council was getting set to pass comprehensive ethics reform legislation. In March, the council's approval rating was 54 percent, a statistic members liked to point out when the session started this year under scrutiny because five of the 13 elected officials had been touched by some kind of scandal.
Gray, who also would lose in a re-election bid against former Mayor Anthony Williams, had a job approval rating of 34 percent. Police Chief Cathy Lanier scored the highest approval rating among the tested officials with 78 percent of voters saying she was doing a good job. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton came in second-best with 77 percent approval.
