D.C. residents will vote for a new era of mayoral and congressional leaders Tuesday as the nation’s capital grapples with declining revenues and increasing federal oversight into its day-to-day operations under the Trump administration.
Tuesday’s primary election serves as the decisive vote among the District’s liberal electorate, with three-term Mayor Muriel Bowser and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has served as the District’s nonvoting representative in Congress since 1991, both opting against running again.
The mayoral contest has drawn the most attention because of the competing visions between the top two contenders and for what the result could mean for the city’s relationship with the White House.
Former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, who has positioned himself as the business-friendly, law-and-order candidate, squares off against D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist who leads comfortably in the most recent polls.
President Trump has threatened to “take over” the District if Ms. Lewis George, who fashions herself as D.C.’s version of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, wins Tuesday’s primary.
It’s not clear how Mr. Trump could exert more control over the city without an act of Congress, but the president has inserted himself into public safety matters with last summer’s federal crime crackdown and the ongoing National Guard deployment.
Both mayoral candidates said they want to reframe the relationship with the White House to better serve D.C. interests.
Ms. Lewis George criticized the District’s current posture of “complying in advance” with the Trump administration and was adamant about fighting in court what she sees as the executive branch’s overreach.
Mr. McDuffie said he’s open to working with the federal government on projects that will boost local jobs, including the RFK Stadium site, but he wouldn’t go along with Mr. Trump’s desire to clear homeless encampments.
Likely voters rate the former councilman slightly higher than his opponent on forging political relations with the president, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, but Ms. Lewis George’s progressive stance on affordability has connected with respondents.
That same poll showed Ms. Lewis George holding a double-digit lead over Mr. McDuffie, largely because voters approved of her plan to address the city’s high cost of living.
Her policy proposals include expanding rent control across the city’s current housing stock and ensuring no family would pay more than 7% of their household income on childcare. She also has promised to add 72,000 new units to the housing inventory over the next five years.
To accomplish those goals, she has proposed a new tax on D.C. business owners who live in Maryland or Virginia.
Mr. McDuffie has criticized the plan as one that would scare away prized commercial tenants. The District’s coffers are running low due to the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal government.
Mr. McDuffie also has been a strong advocate for tougher policing, specifically in the form of a much-debated juvenile curfew meant to thwart “teen takeovers.”
Ms. Lewis George has argued against the curfew and accused her opponent of changing his stance on the policing tool when it became politically convenient.
Also on the ballot are two D.C. Council members vying to be the District’s next congressional representative in a race that offers a dynamic similar to the mayoral race, with a more moderate Brooke Pinto trying to outdo her progressive counterpart Robert White.
Mr. White’s left-wing bonafides feature legislation that restored voting rights to imprisoned felons and expanded paid family leave. His campaign has highlighted his upbringing as a native Washingtonian and his willingness to spar with the Trump administration about preserving the District’s autonomy.
Ms. Pinto, on the other hand, presents herself in the same vein as Mr. McDuffie — a pro-business, crime-fighting advocate for the District, even if that means working with congressional Republicans on occasion.
The Ward 2 Democrat authored a major crime omnibus bill and has been a fierce defender of the District’s tougher temporary pretrial detention laws, which allow judges to keep violent defendants locked up during their trials.
Mr. White has largely opposed the laws because they disproportionately affect the city’s Black residents.
Ms. Pinto’s campaign war chest has fueled an ad blitz that Mr. White has struggled to match. But the at-large Democrat held a 17-point advantage over his council colleague in the only public poll on the race released last month.
Several council seats will be on Tuesday’s ballot as well.
Nine candidates will attempt to win the at-large Democrat seat held by Anita Bonds, who announced she wouldn’t seek reelection.
Three candidates are competing for the at-large independent seat formerly held by Mr. McDuffie until he resigned to focus on his mayoral campaign.
After Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau said she would not try to win office again, five candidates qualified in the race for her seat.
Incumbents such as Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, Ward 3’s Matt Frumin, Ward 5’s Zachary Parker, Ward 6’s Charles Allen and Attorney General Brian Schwalb are also on the primary ballots.
Tuesday’s primary will be the District’s first taste of ranked choice voting.
Voters will rank the candidates in order of preference, and if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate in last place is dropped.
The votes submitted for the last-place candidate are then redistributed among the rest of the field according to the preferences of the dropped candidate’s voters. This process repeats until one candidate emerges with a majority of votes.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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