An article on a local news site in Arlington, Virginia, blew up overnight, and the site says the views mostly came from what appears to be an internal Amazon.com page.
A local news site called ARLnow.com said it recently saw an unusual spike in traffic to an article from December titled "County Wins Top Environmental Award from US Green Building Council," explaining how Arlington County was the first in the US to be selected for an environmental award.
ARLnow.com speculated that the page was linked closely with Amazon's search for the city for its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, and that the traffic spike indicated Arlington is being considered seriously.
Amazon has drastically increased its lobbying efforts.
Amazon has rapidly expanded its DC lobbying efforts in the last five years, according to Bloomberg.
The company has increased its lobbying spending by more than 400% in the last five years. It has also widely expanded both the number of issues and the number of entities it lobbies, according to Bloomberg. To do this, it has nearly doubled the number of lobbyists it employs.
The company is reportedly fighting to be seen as a job creator rather than a job taker. It's working to have more influence in Washington as it expands and moves rapidly into areas like drone aviation, cloud computing, and grocery.
In 2015, Amazon hired Jay Carney — press secretary under former President Barack Obama — to oversee corporate affairs, and he now oversees the DC policy office, which opened in 2014.
These moves are also powerful signifiers of a desire to have more influence in Washington. One way Amazon could have more influence is by relocating some of its corporate operations in or near the city. It could do that with its HQ2 project, which promises to bring significant investment to the chosen area.
Three of the 20 remaining HQ2 contenders are in the DC metro area.
Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, which border Washington, DC, are the only proposals under consideration that are not from a major city.
Additionally, DC is the only metro area with three separate locations appearing on the short list.
That may indicate that Amazon has selected DC as its most desirable area for HQ2.
The battle among the three locations is likely to be the fiercest, as they won't be able to point to the region as a differentiating factor and must throw in their best incentives. No other locations on the list are as close and have this degree of disadvantage.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos already owns the district's largest home.
In 2017, The Washington Post revealed that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was the buyer of a pair of mansions in the Kalorama section of DC.
The property totals 27,000 square feet, and Bezos reportedly intends to turn it into a single-family home that would be the largest in Washington, DC. The deal closed for $23 million on October 21, 2016. The homes sit in the Kalorama section of DC, a popular destination for well-heeled Washington residents.
If DC is already a place where Bezos likes to spend his time, it stands to reason it's a top choice for HQ2.
It's a desirable city for other reasons, too.
There are a few other reasons Amazon may choose DC.
It meets all the criteria the company set for HQ2, including those for transportation, education, workforce, and livability. It has a well-respected higher-education system, and there's plenty going on that makes it a desirable place for a younger workforce to live.