Antonio Olivo named The Washington Post’s local politics editor

In his new position, Tony will use his considerable talents to steer a team of reporters in Maryland at a time of high stakes, when the state is led by a governor with national political ambitions and is locked in a tight U.S. Senate contest that could determine control of that chamber. He will also shepherd enterprise and accountability coverage of the state’s agencies and lawmakers, as well as our reporting on the suburban Maryland communities that ring the District.

As a government reporter based in Northern Virginia, Tony has been known for spotting compelling stories, his eye for detail and his ability to connect neighborhood frictions to broader issues. He delved into the steady urbanization and political tensions of D.C.’s suburbs, wrote accountability stories and narratives about the arrival of Afghan refugees to the region and tracked the busloads of Latin American migrants sent to D.C. from Texas and Arizona.

Tony also did several reporting stints in Afghanistan, where he wrote about a teen artist who overcame her disabilities by using her mouth to hold her pencil and the first professional evening soccer match held in the war-ravaged country in decades.

More recently, he has chronicled the impacts of the data center industry’s explosive growth in Northern Virginia, part of an ongoing series about the broader consequences of our increasingly digital lives.

Tony came to The Post in 2013 from the Chicago Tribune, where he was an urban affairs reporter covering immigration and housing and, for four years, worked as the Metro Desk weekend editor.

Tony attended UCLA as an undergraduate, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature with a focus in cinema studies. In his spare time, he is part of a community theater troupe in D.C. and regularly travels to New York to visit his twin daughters, Maya and Dahlia.

Please join us in congratulating Tony, who officially starts in his new role this week.