Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George inches closer to clinching DC's mayoral primary

WASHINGTON (CN) — As the sun rose on Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning, residents still weren’t fully enlightened about who would be the capital city’s most likely choice for its next mayor.

But while it could be some time before there’s an official winner in the contest to lead the city and its push to resist further encroachment from the Trump administration, D.C. looked on track to elect an avowed democratic socialist and staunch opponent of the president to its highest office.

D.C. residents went to the polls Tuesday to vote on the Democratic nominee for November’s mayoral election. The capital city, though, is one of the deepest-blue areas in the country, and so the winner of this week’s contest will be broadly considered the favorite to take the reins from Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is not seeking reelection.

The tightly contested race has not only drawn the attention of people living in D.C., who’ve been hit hard by federal workforce cuts and a high cost of living, but also by people living outside the District for whom the mayoral contest is a bellwether for the future of Democratic politics.

Ahead of this week’s primary, Janeese Lewis George — a self-described democratic socialist who has built her campaign around an ambitious childcare plan — was leading over Kenyan McDuffie, viewed as the more moderate Democrat in the race. And as polls closed Tuesday night, Lewis George quickly cemented her frontrunner status.

An initial count from D.C.’s board of elections showed Lewis George with around 53% of the vote, compared with McDuffie’s 37%. Businessman Gary Goodweather, the third runner-up of the Democratic primary, secured around 3% of ballots counted Tuesday night.

During a campaign event at the historic Howard Theatre in D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood, Lewis George all but claimed victory in her primary contest against McDuffie. “Tonight, we are making history by showing this country that the dream of America is still alive in its capital city,” she told the gathered crowd. “If there ever was any doubt, let it no be laid to rest — it is the people of D.C. who elect the mayor of D.C.”

Still, there were many votes still to count on Wednesday morning. On Election Day, D.C.’s board of elections only counts in-person votes, as well as mail-in ballots received beforehand. Mail ballots received after Election Day are counted in the proceeding days.

“It looks like Janeese Lewis George is probably going to emerge as the victor in this one, but we don’t have all the votes yet,” said Derek Holliday, a professor of political science at George Washington University, in an interview with Courthouse News. “This is likely going to be a pretty long counting process.”

During D.C.’s 2022 primary election, just 33% of ballots were cast in person. The vast majority, nearly 67%, were received via mail ballots or other special accommodation. Only half of those mail ballots were counted on Election Day.

D.C.’s switch to ranked-choice voting could also hamper efforts to quickly determine the general election candidate. Under the new system, residents filling out an election ballot indicate as many as five candidates in descending order of preference. Votes will be tabulated in rounds: If neither Lewis George or McDuffie secure 50% of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. The second ballot then includes the second-choice votes from residents who listed the eliminated candidate as their first preference.

That process continues until one candidate crosses the 50% threshold and is declared the winner.

Holliday pointed out that, in other national examples of ranked-choice voting, there were “ideological correlates” for mail ballots, and that some groups of people who vote late are often more likely to prefer one candidate to another. Recent polling, he said, suggested that undecided voters in the D.C. mayoral race were “demographically more similar” to McDuffie voters — meaning there could be a tranche of his supporters yet to be counted.

But McDuffie would need a significant bump to overcome his deficit to Lewis George.

“It’s a very narrow road to be walking, and just looking at the map of where McDuffie voters might be … his lead is not that large,” said Holliday. “If it’s going to break for McDuffie, it’s going to have to be pretty overwhelming in the late arriving votes, and it’s going to have to come significantly from his bases of support.”

Outstanding ballots, he noted, were dispersed across the entire city and not concentrated in areas where McDuffie has shown strong support, such as D.C.’s northwest quadrant.

“It’s not that these late-breaking, undecided voters are likely to go 90-10 to McDuffie versus Lewis George,” Holliday added. “Those are the sorts of margins that he might need to start putting up as it gets later and later in the day.”

Whether ranked-choice voting will impact the primary result, however, remains unclear. Initial returns Tuesday night showed Lewis George beyond the 50% mark needed to claim victory. It remains to be seen whether mail ballots will extend her lead or tighten McDuffie’s support.

The ultimate victor of D.C.’s mayoral contest will face daunting challenges, not just in local policy but also on the national stage. And whoever occupies the Wilson Building after November may also face the wrath of President Donald Trump.

Speaking in the Oval Office last week, the president said he “wouldn’t like it” if Lewis George, a democratic socialist who has drawn some comparisons to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, wins the nomination.

“Maybe we take back Washington and run it on a federal basis,” he said. “We won’t put up with it.”

The Trump administration has already adopted an aggressive posture toward the capital city, briefly federalizing D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department last summer and deploying the National Guard — which will likely remain in the city through the end of Trump’s term. And threats of increased federal meddling in D.C. have been a central theme in the mayoral race.

At her election night event on Tuesday, Lewis George was asked by reporters whether the president’s remarks ultimately helped her campaign.

“Yeah, I’ll be honest about that — I think so,” she replied. “I think what happened is that it motivated people to get to the polls … people were like, ‘wait a minute, I need to pay attention.’”

Both Lewis George and McDuffie have vowed to defend the capital city’s home rule — its legal authority to set municipal law and budget priorities — and to end existing cooperation agreements between D.C. police and federal immigration enforcement penned by Bowser.

Holliday opined that the president’s interest in the D.C. mayoral primary “nationalized” conversation about the election. But when it comes to the next mayor actually resisting White House encroachment on local issues, he argued there isn’t much room to breathe.

“There’s just not a ton that an incumbent mayor can do if the federal government turns its gaze towards D.C. for a bit, legally speaking,” he said. “While both candidates suggested that they would be more likely to cooperate less with the Trump administration … there’s not a ton of runway for either candidate to wholesale resist particular elements of the administration’s policy within D.C.”

D.C.’s next mayor will also need to contend with a cost of living crisis in the city, exacerbated by economic downturn and mass cuts to the federal workforce spearheaded by the Trump administration. Both Lewis George and McDuffie have said they would work to incentivize new, affordable housing development in the nation’s capital and that they would take on high-utility bills. Lewis George in particular has said that she will take steps to address the proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers in the D.C. area that have driven up energy costs.

“Certainly that’s an issue that seems to be top of mind for a lot of voters, as compared to the sort of crime and safety approach that was more championed by McDuffie,” said Holliday.

Indeed, public safety was also a key issue in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary. McDuffie has hit Lewis George on her past opposition to youth curfews implemented by Bowser after several high-profile incidents in D.C. neighborhoods. He’s said “teen takeovers” should be treated like a public safety emergency.

Putting a finer point on conversations about public safety, a 44-year-old man shot and killed a woman on Election Day in D.C.’s northwest quadrant, near the exclusive Sidwell Friends school. The suspect was later killed by police.

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