Barry defeated Republican nominee Arthur Fletcher and two marginal candidates in the general election on November 7, 1978.

Additionally, Washington's history as a former presidential appointee raised suspicions that he was too closely tied to the city's former federal custodians.

[1] However, Barry remained in third place until The Washington Post endorsed him on August 30, two weeks before the election.

[1] In the November general election, Barry faced Arthur Fletcher, an African-American Republican who had served as an Assistant Secretary in Richard Nixon's Department of Labor.

Fletcher approached the race by accusing Barry of being the white man's candidate, a tactic which The Washington Post criticized as "unforgivably shabby.