D.C. residents will head to the polls Tuesday to select a shifting lineup of mayoral and congressional leaders as the nation’s capital grapples with declining revenue and increased federal oversight of its day-to-day operations under the Trump administration.
The primary election serves as the decisive vote among the District’s liberal electorate. Three-term Mayor Muriel Bowser and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has served as the District’s nonvoting representative in Congress since 1991, opted not to run again.
The mayoral contest has drawn the most attention because of the competing visions of the top two contenders and because of 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” if Ms. Lewis George, who fashions herself as the District’s version of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, wins the primary.
It is unclear 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 the federal crime crackdown last summer 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 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 is open to working with the federal government on projects that will boost local jobs, including at the RFK Stadium site, but he would not go along with Mr. Trump’s desire to clear homeless encampments.
Likely voters rate the former council member 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 liberal 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 that no family pays more than 7% of its household income for childcare. She has also promised to add 72,000 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 said the plan would scare away prized commercial tenants.
The District’s coffers are running low because of the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal government.
Mr. McDuffie has also been a strong advocate for tougher policing, specifically a much-debated juvenile curfew aimed at thwarting “teen takeovers.”
Ms. Lewis George has argued against the efficacy of the curfew, pointing instead to investments in root-cause violence interruption. She 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 delegate in a race that offers a dynamic similar to the mayoral contest. Brooke Pinto faces her more liberal rival, Robert White.
Mr. White’s left-wing bona fides 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. Despite that financial advantage, the at-large council member held a 17-point lead over Ms. Pinto in the only public poll on the race, released last month.
Several council seats will also be on the ballot.
Nine Democrats will vie in the primary for the at-large seat held by Anita Bonds, who announced she would not seek reelection.
Three independent candidates — interim incumbent Doni Crawford, Jacque Patterson, president of the D.C. State Board of Education, and former council member Elissa Silverman — are competing in a concurrent special election for the at-large seat vacated by Mr. McDuffie.
After Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau said she would not seek reelection, five candidates qualified in the race for her seat.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, Ward 3 member Matt Frumin, Ward 5 member Zachary Parker, Ward 6 member Charles Allen and Attorney General Brian Schwalb are among the incumbents also on the primary ballots.
The primary will be the District’s first experience with ranked choice voting.
Voters will rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, then the candidate in last place is dropped.
The votes submitted for the last-place candidate are then redistributed among the remaining candidates according to the preferences of the dropped candidate’s voters. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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