Who wants to be the next Muriel Bowser? A bunch of people, possibly. A whole bunch of potential candidates to replace Bowser in the Ward 4 D.C. Council seat aren’t ruling out competing in a special election.

D.C. Council Ward 4 replacement hopeful A.J. Cooper nearly kicked off his campaign before ballots were counted Tuesday, and has only expanded it since—-one LL tipster has already spotted a Cooper sign. Cooper’s potential rivals, though, are playing it a little closer to the vest.

First up: Rev. Graylan Hagler, the lefty preacher who scored 3 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s at-large race. Hagler is the target of a draft campaign that so far doesn’t appear to exist off of social media. For now, though, Hagler says he’s waiting to see the race develop.

“People have talked to me about the Ward 4 seat over and over again,” Hagler says.

Hagler could face off against two other former at-large hopefuls who live in Ward 4: one-time Councilmember Sekou Biddle and Robert White, who received nearly 7 percent of Tuesday’s at-large vote. LL ran into both at Bowser’s victory party, and they both declined to commit either way on a bid—-although Biddle describes it as “a little early” to consider.

Biddle should tell that to Cooper, who reportedly had bike-borne advertisements hitting up polling places to promote his campaign.

Bowser acolytes play up the chances of Brandon Todd, her campaign’s finance director and the president of the Ward 4 Democrats. After Bowser’s football-spiking press conference on Wednesday, Todd declined to tell LL his plans on the grounds that Bowser is still the councilmember.

But not for much longer! On Tuesday, Bowser declined to anoint Todd or anyone else as her successor, telling LL in a characteristic tautology, “I’m the Ward 4 councilmember until I’m not the Ward 4 councilmember.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery