Ten quick questions about the issues defining the 2026 At-Large Council special election — housing, public safety, the safety net, taxes, education — produce a personalized ranking of all three candidates, scored against their own public statements and questionnaire responses. Four minutes. No login. Nothing saved.
/ The Questions
Ten questions cover the actual fault lines in this race — not generic "what do you care about" questions. Each is tied to a specific policy decision the next councilmember will face. Questions where all three candidates agree were deliberately left out.
/ The Sources
Candidate positions are drawn from their written responses to Opportunity DC, DC YIMBYs, DC for Democracy, Greater Greater Washington, Ward 1 Democrats, GLAA, and the Committee of 100 — plus campaign platforms and the May 11, 2026 candidate debate. View Sources →
/ The Ranking
Your answers are scored against each candidate's stated position on each question, weighted by how important you said the issue is. Every candidate appears in your results — ranked, but the choice is yours.
/ The Ballot
This tool ranks the three candidates on the June 16 special-election ballot for the at-large seat vacated by Kenyan McDuffie. Because it's a nonpartisan special election, every registered DC voter can participate, regardless of party. Under ranked-choice voting, you can rank up to four. There are no qualified write-in candidates in this race.
Tap any candidate to see how you align on each issue, where they stand, and what open questions exist about their platform.
This is an independent voter-education tool for D.C. voters, built for the June 16, 2026 special election for the At-Large Council seat vacated when Kenyan McDuffie resigned to run for mayor. The winner serves the remainder of the term — through January 2, 2027 — and then faces re-election in November for the full four-year term. This is a nonpartisan special election: every registered D.C. voter can participate regardless of party, and it uses ranked-choice voting, which lets you rank up to four choices in order of preference. (By D.C. Charter, one of the four at-large seats is reserved for a non-majority-party member; this is that seat, currently held on an interim basis by Doni Crawford.)
Candidate positions are drawn directly from their public questionnaire responses to Opportunity DC, DC YIMBYs, DC for Democracy, Greater Greater Washington, Ward 1 Democrats, GLAA, and the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, plus their campaign platforms and the May 11, 2026 candidate debate. Where a candidate has not stated a position on a given issue, the tool says so explicitly rather than inferring one. The ten questions were chosen by a deliberate filter: only issues where at least two of the three candidates demonstrably disagree on the public record are included. Questions where all three agree — defending Home Rule, limiting MPD cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, hiring more police officers — were left out because they would not help you tell the candidates apart. A full question-by-question source list is on the Sources & Citations page.
The "Open Questions" section for each candidate surfaces specific critiques, inconsistencies, or unanswered questions about their platform — drawing from opposing candidates' public statements, internal contradictions in their own materials, and substantive policy concerns. The same scrutiny is applied to every candidate. Across the ten questions, no single candidate is disproportionately the outlier: Crawford anchors the preservation and safety-skeptic positions, Patterson anchors both law-and-order and status-quo-governance positions, and Silverman sits nearer the center on most questions — so no answer pattern systematically favors or punishes any one candidate.
Scoring formula: For each question you answer, your position is compared to each candidate's position. Candidates closer to your view earn more points; candidates further away earn fewer. Each issue is weighted by how important you marked it. Final scores are normalized to 0–100 to produce the ranking you see. The math gives every candidate a fair shake based on actual policy alignment, not name recognition.
This tool is a starting point, not a verdict. Use the results to think through your own ranking. Read the alignment details, weigh the open questions, and trust your own judgment on what matters most. How you rank candidates on your actual ballot is entirely your decision.
About the author. This site was created by Byron LaMasters, a Washington, D.C.–based political consultant and Democratic strategist, with assistance from Claude AI — to help D.C. voters navigate the city's new ranked-choice voting system in the June 16, 2026 special election. The site is independent of any campaign or candidate.
Last updated: May 28, 2026 · Independent and unaffiliated · Built for D.C. voters