Washington Blade Best of LGBTQ DC: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is Best of LGBTQ DC and who runs it?

Best of LGBTQ DC is the readers' choice awards program of the Washington Blade, an LGBTQ newspaper published in Washington, D.C. The ballot sits on the Blade's own website at washingtonblade.com/best-of-gay-d-c/ rather than on an outside polling service, and it works the way classic best-of contests do: readers put forward local favorites, a finalist slate emerges from the strongest nominees, and a closing vote decides who tops each category.

The paper behind it describes itself on its own pages as "America's Leading LGBT News Source," and the masthead carries a copyright line for Brown, Naff, Pitts Omnimedia, Inc. The contest extends that coverage into a public ranking: instead of editors picking winners, the readership decides, which is why the outcome tracks whoever can turn out the steadiest support while the rounds are live. The 2013 ballot invited readers to vote for their favorites in dozens of categories, the scale that edition advertised on its face.

Identity facts

Which editions ran, and what dates govern the live cycle?

Confirmed editions: 2013, 2025 and 2026. The Blade's own pages treat the contest as a recurring fixture, speaking of "its annual 'Best Of LGBTQ DC' contest each year," and the 2026 cycle doubled as the program's 25th anniversary. The earliest edition on hand ran under the earlier title Best of Gay D.C. 2013, when winners were slated for the paper's October 25th print edition. Both announcement points known for this program, that 2013 print date and the 2026 awards party, fall in October.

The live cycle runs in two steps. A nomination call collects readers' favorites, the top 5 nominees in each category become finalists, and finalist voting opens once that slate is set. For 2026 the sequence played out as laid out below, with winners announced afterward at the Best of LGBTQ DC Awards Party.

Cycle sequence

What no announcement settles is the finish line: the Blade prints when a round opens but no standing close date for the finalist vote; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter actually vote?

Mechanically the ballot asks very little. During the nomination stage, a supporter opens the page and enters a favorite where the form requests one. Once finalists are posted, the same ballot becomes a pick-per-category exercise: choose the finalist you back, submit, and the entry is tied to your email address. The counting rule is one vote per email address per day, the single most important operational fact for anyone rallying support, because it makes tomorrow worth as much as today. Nothing in the rule confines a supporter to a single visit across the round, only to a single entry within a given day.

Everything runs in a browser. There is no download and no separate balloting app in the Blade's presentation; the contest lives at one address, washingtonblade.com/best-of-gay-d-c/, and what changes between stages is what the form asks for. Between announcements the page itself gives no schedule, so a supporter who wants to act the moment a stage opens watches the Blade's news pages, where each round is called.

For anyone planning a push, the practical reading is simple: the daily allowance rewards consistency over burst effort, and the nomination stage matters as much as the finale, since a contender who misses the cut never reaches the head-to-head vote.

How does this ballot sit beside other D.C. readers' choice contests?

Washington, D.C. carries a crowded readers'-choice field, and this ballot's neighbors show where the Blade's version stands. The Washington City Paper Best of DC contest covers the city at large, and the Washington Informer's Best of The DMV runs the same format from another publisher's audience. The RAMMYs concentrate on restaurants, while the BroadwayWorld Washington D.C. Awards take theater as their beat. Best of LGBTQ DC is the one whose entire frame is the LGBTQ community, run by the newspaper whose newsroom exists to cover it.

Two structural traits also set it apart. First, the two-stage design: a nomination round feeds a finalist ballot, so a contender has to clear a nomination cut before any head-to-head vote begins. Second, longevity: a 25th anniversary reached in 2026 is a runway few local polls can claim. For a business or organization deciding where to put outreach energy, the differences matter less than the shared mechanic, because public readers' votes generally reward the same underlying behavior, organized supporters showing up repeatedly while the window is open.

How can a campaign strengthen its support during the round?

The structure of this ballot tells campaigns where effort pays. Because each email address carries one entry per day under the Blade's rule, a base that returns steadily through the finalist stage outperforms a larger group that votes once and disappears. Timing helps too: the Blade telegraphs its rounds, posting a nomination call ahead of the 2026 stage, so watching the paper's announcements lets a campaign mobilize before rivals catch on.

Practical moves follow from that. Ask supporters to calendar a daily reminder spanning the finalist window. Name the exact categories to fill so nobody spreads attention thin. Share the ballot address directly instead of sending people to search for it. And treat the nomination stage as its own campaign, since missing the cut ends everything before the finale. For a broader playbook that fits any public readers' vote, see how to get more votes online.