Trayon White Sr. has survived a challenge to his candidacy for mayor of D.C. brought earlier this month by Robert C. White Jr.'s mayoral campaign, securing his spot on the Democratic primary ballot after the city’s elections board ruled Friday that he collected 138 more signatures than required.

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       With less than two months to go until the June 21 primary, the challenge has marked one of the more dramatic moments in the race for the District’s next mayor. Both Trayon White, a Ward 8 Council member, and Robert White, an at-large member of the council, as well as former advisory neighborhood commissioner James Butler, are vying to unseat two-term incumbent mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). All four candidates had to collect 2,000 valid signatures from registered Democratic voters in the District to qualify for the ballot.

       While announcing the challenge earlier this month, Robert White’s campaign said it found issues with nearly 2,800 of the 4,300 or so signatures gathered by Trayon White’s campaign, mostly pertaining to signers who are not registered to vote at the addresses they provided. Trayon White has called the challenge “deceitful and divisive,” and last week, his campaign boasted about a preliminary finding from the elections board that indicated — despite thousands of invalid signatures — he had still collected enough.

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       Following an additional review requested by Robert White’s campaign this week, the elections board said Friday it found issues with about 61 more signatures, ultimately leaving Trayon White with 2,138 valid signatures — still enough to qualify.

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       Robert White’s wife Christy White, an attorney who also represented his campaign at the Friday hearing, had argued that the newly discovered errors showed that there were likely even more problems in Trayon White’s nominating petitions. She asked the board to reconsider more than 400 signatures.

       “In essence, every other signature provided by Trayon White has been found to be invalid; each time an official has reviewed signatures submitted by Trayon White, it finds more signatures to invalidate,” Christy White said. “It is imperative to set a precedent that when it comes to ballot access, the law will be followed.”

       Christy White further charged that the campaign could not confirm whether five of Trayon White’s petition circulators were D.C. residents, which could have compromised additional signatures. But the elections board said the onus was on Robert White’s campaign to confirm their residency.

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       In his response, Trayon White decried Robert White’s campaign’s push for further review. In a tweet before the board made its official decision, he called the challenge “a weak witch hunt” and pushed Robert White to drop out of the race.

       “We knew going into this that we were dealing with a lot of residents in D.C. who had a lot of housing insecurities, who had changed residencies during the pandemic,” Trayon White said during the hearing Friday. “As a result, we went above and beyond to make sure we had enough signatures to qualify.”

       Robert White’s campaign manager Luz Martinez said the campaign had no plans to appeal the decision.

       The board’s ruling ensures that both lawmakers will appear on the ballot alongside the incumbent Bowser and lesser-known Butler; political observers have said Robert White and Trayon White could split votes among residents seeking a change from the incumbent.

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       Trayon White this week was also certified for the fair elections campaign-finance program, netting him an $80,000 base payout and $282,450 in matching funds — a big boost to a campaign that has been working with significantly less funding than Bowser and Robert White, who already qualified for the program.

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       The signature challenge was among 10 that the board considered Friday ahead of deadlines to finalize the ballot and begin sending them to voters in May. The board also moved to disqualify two candidates in the race for at-large council member, Leniqua’dominique Jenkins and Bradley Thomas.

       The board found that both fell short of the required 2,000 valid signatures, whittling the number of Democratic candidates in that race from six to four.

       Challengers and candidates have three days following the board’s ruling to ask the D.C. Court of Appeals to reverse the decision. At least one campaign has already done so: attorney general candidate Kenyan R. McDuffie, who represents Ward 5 on the council, asked the D.C. Court of Appeals on Thursday to reconsider an elections board ruling earlier this week that found he is ineligible for the ballot.

       Journalist Tom Sherwood first reported Friday that seven current and former members of the D.C. Council submitted a legal briefing in support of McDuffie, arguing that the original co-sponsors of the bill that created the District’s attorney general would not have written it in a way to disqualify city lawmakers who are members of the D.C. Bar from running for attorney general.