At-large D.C. Council hopeful Robert White lags behind incumbent Vincent Orange in cash on hand, and he has fellow challenger David Garber taking at least some share of the anti-Orange vote. But this afternoon, White talked a good game about his chances in the race. 

“The empirical evidence is really good for us,” White said as he waited for voters outside King Greenleaf Recreation Center in Southwest. 

White’s holding onto hope in a tough race in part because of a visit to Ward 5’s Queens Chapel neighborhood, which White says Orange expects to be his “stronghold.” Instead, White claims many of the voters in Queens Chapel backed him instead. 

“I think he’s relying on them, but I don’t think they necessarily love him,” White says. 

Then there’s Garber’s struggling campaign, which had only a few thousand dollars in the bank as of Friday. White says Garber lacks the organization of previous Orange challengers like Peter Shapiro, who helped split the anti-Orange vote in 2012.

“This is the first polling station I’ve been to that I’ve even seen a [Garber] yard sign,” White said.

Still, White’s fretting over citywide registration issues that have sent some voters scrambling to different polling places or forced to cast special ballots. WAMU reports that the problems may be caused by an issue with the D.C. Board of Elections’ mobile app.  

“That makes me a bit nervous,” White says.