Just a few minutes ago, Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille announced that he will run a write-in campaign for reelection, in spite of losing the Democratic primary in June to Allison Silberberg. In addition, his write-in campaign tweeted, “Thank you @DonleyforMayor for endorsing @BillEuille for mayor.” That’s a big one, given that combined, Mayor Euille and Vice Mayor Donley received 62% of the Democratic primary vote in June, versus Silberberg’s 38%. This should be verrrry interesting…and yes, I still think Euille can win. It will be particularly interesting to see how the Alexandria Democratic Committee handles this situation. I’ve definitely heard concerns expressed by Alexandria Dems, including one who emailed to say that Euille’s campaign could “tear apart the Alexandria Democratic Party and the City of Alexandria,” while making it “much more likely that Republicans will get a seat (or even…the majority) in our City Council.” We’ll see.
UPDATE 7:00 pm: The Alexandria Times reports that Euille “launched into a scathing attack on Silberberg’s record,” charging that her “view of public policy is to just say ‘No,'” and declaring, “I will not sit back and watch as a tide of naysayers take over the city. I will not watch our triple-A bond rating be jeopardized.”
