D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto running to succeed D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton

D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto announced Monday that she is running to succeed D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s longtime non-voting representative in Congress.

Her campaign launch comes less than a week after council colleague Robert White, at-large Democrat, declared his intent to run for Ms. Holmes Norton’s seat as well.

Ms. Pinto, Ward 2 Democrat, released a video Monday in which she promised to fight for the District’s autonomy and public safety if elected as D.C. delegate.

The video identified President Trump as one of the millions of people who visit the nation’s capital each year to sightsee or drop into museums, rather than as one of the loyal Washingtonians who lay down their roots by raising their families or opening businesses in the District.

“We know the difference between real D.C., the people who are here for good, and the tourists,” Ms. Pinto said in the campaign video.

Mr. Trump has exercised his constitutional authority over the District during the first nine months of his return to office, beginning with a flurry of executive orders that dismantled homeless camps, granted clemency to convicted cops and deployed the D.C. National Guard to combat street crime.

The federal surge of troops and federal agents produced a marked decline in deadly shootings and robberies. But Ms. Pinto, who made a name for herself as a crime fighter while chairing the council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, said the president’s initiatives benefitted from the hard work already done by local leaders.

“Violent crime was down over 50% before President Trump deployed the National Guard,” she said. “I fought to keep our police fully funded, but Congress and the White House have slashed our budgets. We’ve made all this progress with one hand tied behind our back.”

The council member wrote the Secure D.C. package in March 2024 that strengthened jailing rules, created new felonies and cracked down on carjackings in response to 2023’s generational spike in killings, muggings and violent car thefts.

At the start of Mr. Trump’s National Guard deployment, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city was experiencing a 30-year-low in violent crime because of legislative changes made at the council level.

Ms. Pinto touted her connections on Capitol Hill while saying she wants to build on the legacy of Ms. Holmes Norton.

Ms. Holmes Norton, who has been a fierce advocate for D.C. statehood and the federal city’s right to self-governance since first taking office in 1991, was out of the picture during Mr. Trump’s federal takeover of the District’s public safety system.

Despite the 88-year-old Democrat showing her age in public appearances, Ms. Holmes Norton told Axios last week that she will run for re-election next year.

A representative for Ms. Holmes Norton’s campaign did not have a comment on Ms. Pinto or Mr. White’s announcements.

The Washington Times has reached out to the D.C. Democratic Party for comment.

Mr. White was more direct about the problems presented by the elderly Ms. Holmes Norton when he launched his campaign last week.

“Eleanor Holmes Norton is an icon who gave her heart and soul to D.C. for 34 years. I know, I worked for her for five years,” Mr. White said in the Oct. 2 video. “But the strength of her voice is noticeably absent at a time when we need it most.”

Mr. White hit on many of the same notes as Ms. Pinto — criticizing Congress for cutting $1 billion from the District’s fiscal year budget, slamming Mr. Trump’s National Guard deployment and the presence of masked federal agents arresting people out in the open.

The council member said supporting his congressional campaign was essential because the District is the “front line of Trump’s assault on every American city”