Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Election Day brings the mayoral contest to a close. Royce’s campaign circulates a doctored flyer linking Carcetti to a slumlord, and Carcetti’s team debates a response. Clay Davis offers to sit out his usual support for Royce in exchange for money; Carcetti reluctantly agrees. That night, Carcetti learns he has won the primary and is the presumptive mayor-elect. He attends the celebration but turns down D’Agostino’s advance. Davis appears after backing Royce anyway. At the Western District, Herc mistakes Marlo’s meeting with a woman for a drug pickup and arrests him at Penn Station.
Rawls sends Greggs and Norris to election duty, delaying the murdered-witness investigation. At school, Colvin and Parenti move Namond into their study program. Randy fears expulsion after an accusation and tells Prez he knows something about a murder; Prez asks Daniels to help protect him. Randy earns money handing out campaign leaflets and recruits Dukie, Kenard and Donut, but they take the advance and leave him to finish. Namond returns to the corner after Brianna ends the family stipend, and De’Londa pushes him to work. Omar is arrested for the delivery woman’s murder. In prison he fears an attack, then discovers that Butchie has sent two men to protect him.