A high-profile race for mayor could pit democratic socialists against the establishment
www.the-downballot.com
Councilmember Janeese Lewis George
announced Monday morning that she would run to replace Mayor Muriel Bowser, who
said last week that she would not seek a fourth term leading Washington, D.C.
But Lewis George, who is a self-described democratic socialist, almost certainly will have company in the race soon, as fellow Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie has
reportedly been preparing his own campaign. And whoever prevails will face the same pressures Bowser did, thanks to the unique sway the federal government holds over the city.
Most of the chatter surrounding the June 16 Democratic primary has centered on these two members of the Council of the District of Columbia who offer contrasting ideologies: Lewis George, who is a Bowser critic, and McDuffie, who is close to both the incumbent and business groups. Axios’ Cuneyt Dil previously reported that the two were planning out their respective campaigns before Bowser confirmed she would step down.
Lewis George
won her seat representing Ward 4 in the northern part of the city in 2020 after defeating a Bowser ally. This summer, she attracted outsized attention
when she accused the mayor of responding to the Trump administration’s decision to deploy the National Guard and seize control of the district’s police force by “complying in advance.”
Observers speculated that Lewis George could oppose Bowser next year if the incumbent ran again, and the councilmember confirmed in October
that she was interested.
Lewis George, though, may have already decided to run even before Bower’s announcement. Dil
reported last month that a source had overheard a Lewis George advisor discussing the candidate’s forthcoming campaign at a D.C. restaurant with a former Council member, with the two mentioning a planned launch in the first half of this month.
Lewis George went on to kick off her campaign on the first day of December.
“How do we make this city more affordable, safe and have a government that actually works for everyone—where you call 911 and the call gets answered, where you put in a [request] for a traffic safety improvement and you get a speed bump on your street?”
she said in an interview with the Washington Post. “It just takes leadership and courage to solve these problems, and that’s what this race is about for me.”
McDuffie, for his part, has also looked like a likely candidate for some time.
Dil wrote in October that McDuffie, who holds a citywide seat on the Council,
was already telling people he’d enter the race—a move that signaled he didn’t expect Bowser to run again. McDuffie confirmed his interest but said at the time that he was still considering. He
later told WUSA he wouldn’t let other contenders influence his decision.
McDuffie had reason to eschew an immediate campaign launch. He’s currently a registered independent, and his entry into the Democratic primary would require him to both change his affiliation and resign his seat on the Council.
McDuffie, who previously held a ward-level Council seat as a Democrat,
opted to leave the party in 2022 after his plan to seek the Democratic nomination for D.C. attorney general ended when an opponent successfully challenged his eligibility
regarding his legal credentials. But while it was too late to run in the primary for another office, he had another option.
The city’s electoral rules, designed to limit single-party dominance of the Council, permit each party to nominate just a single candidate for the two at-large seats that are on the ballot every two years.
As a consequence, that leaves a wide lane open for left-leaning independents like McDuffie, who
chose to run as an unaligned candidate and won that fall. Those same rules, though, would force him to step down if he were to switch his registration back to Democratic—a step he’d need to take to run in the party primary for mayor.
Whoever becomes the new mayor will lead a city that has no voting representation in Congress—even though the very same body
reviews all laws passed by the local government before they can go into effect and has authority over its budget. This summer’s crisis also underscored just how vulnerable the city is to a hostile Republican administration, a challenge Bowser’s successor will inherit.
The mayoralty is not the only major post that will be on the ballot in what will be a crucial election year for the nation’s capital.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, has repeatedly insisted she’ll seek reelection as the city’s nonvoting advocate in Congress despite
serious concerns about her physical and mental ability to perform her duties. Several of Holmes Norton’s fellow Democrats have announced campaigns against an incumbent they argue has served her constituents well for more than three decades but, they say, is no longer capable of standing up for them.
Winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to victory for both mayor and delegate, but unlike in past elections, a simple plurality won’t be enough to secure the nomination. Thanks to a ballot measure approved by voters last year, both primaries and general elections in D.C. will
now use ranked-choice voting to determine winners, who will need to earn majority support.
