Two independent candidates officially became candidates in the race to become D.C.’s next mayor.

David Catania and Carol Schwartz filed this week more than double the 3,000 petition signatures needed to make it onto the November ballot.

Catania submitted 7,000 signatures on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported, and Schwartz filed her 6,500 signatures Wednesday morning, her campaign announced in an email. This is Schwartz’s fifth mayoral run, this time campaigning as an independent.

Catania, D.C.’s independent At-Large Council member, and Schwartz, a former Republican Council member, will face off against D.C. Council member and Democratic nominee Muriel Bowser. 

Bowser collected 9,000 signatures in January to secure her spot on the primary ballot.

Independent candidates must submit petition signatures to appear on the ballot because there is no primary for independent candidates.

No Republicans are currently slated to run this election, and D.C. has always elected a Democrat as mayor.

Re-elected to D.C. Council four times, Catania is currently chair of the education committee. This June, he opposed a yoga tax which kept the sales tax for exercise classes from rising past 5.75%, calling it  a “penny-wise and pound-foolish proposition.”

Catania, who is gay, cut off ties with the Republican party in 2004 after President George W. Bush called for an amendment to ban gay marriage.

If elected, Catania would be the District’s first white mayor as well as its first openly gay mayor.