ABDEL ELNOUBI
Democrat Abdel Elnoubi is a first-term school board member and capital program manager for Metro (WMATA). Born in Chicago to Egyptian parents, Elnoubi moved to Alexandria, Egypt at seven years old. He would stay there for 13 years, before returning to the states and receiving an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the City College of New York and a masters degree in engineering management from George Washington University. He then moved to Alexandria to work at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, before transitioning to Metro, where he has worked the last 12 years. In addition to serving on the Alexandria School Board since 2021, Elnoubi has worked on the City Community Criminal Justice Board and the Building Code Board of Appeals. He was also president of Samuel Tucker Elementary’s parent-teacher association, the school where his two children attended.
“I grew up in a corrupt dictatorship where there’s no such thing as ordinary citizens being represented in government,” Elnoubi said. “Leaving that, putting myself through college, and working minimum wage jobs has shown me how policies that are really meant to help people can transform lives. I feel that I have an obligation to be part of that and make sure I’m helping shape progressive policies here in Alexandria so everyone can thrive in our city.”
One of Elnoubi’s top priorities is transportation, and he says he envisions an Alexandria where residents are able to “move freely” across the city with or without access to a car. He says he supports keeping DASH busses free in the long term and is a big fan of the Duke Street in Motion project, though “the devil is in the details—fine tuning and adjusting it as we go will be important.” Elnoubi was also enthusiastic about “transit oriented development,” and public-private partnerships to “add as much density as we can” around transit hubs. He says that he would like to add more bike lanes to the city, especially in the West End.
“As we all know, the West End is less transit-friendly,” Elnoubi said. “That’s where our economically disadvantaged population tends to live, and if they can’t move freely, that further limits their access to opportunities.”
As a School Board member, Elnoubi supported collective bargaining and voted to raise teacher salaries by 6 percent this past year, in addition adding school psychologists positions to the budget. Like all other candidates, he says he supports adding a second high school. On the city-wide level, he says he is not in favor of transitioning to a ward-based election system for city council, and would support the city not complying with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in the event of a second Donald J. Trump presidency.