This story is a collaboration with URL Media & The Guardian
WASHINGTON, DC – There’s a transplant from Mar-a-Lago at the center of D.C.’s mayoral primary race, but his name is nowhere on the ballot.
For the first time in more than a decade, Washington, D.C. will have a new mayor as the city faces concerns about how to address public safety, housing affordability, and increased federal immigration enforcement in the district. How the next mayor handles Donald Trump is also key question on residents’ minds, with many closely watching to see if any of the president’s supporters are pouring money into the race, as well as the primaries for the city’s congressional delegate.
Two frontrunners, D.C. councilmember Janeese Lewis George and former councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, both Democrats, are vying to succeed Mayor Muriel Bowser, who led the city during both of Trump’s terms in office. In a Democratic stronghold, whoever wins the primary is likely to win the election in November.
Lewis George, a democratic socialist and two-term city councilmember, has been campaigning on what she calls a “people-first platform,” promising to lower childcare costs and utility bills, stabilize rent for tenants, and prioritize downpayment assistance for homebuyers.
McDuffie, a former at-large city councilmember and former prosecutor, has garnered support from much of Washington’s business community, including restaurants and realtors, while promising to expand affordable housing, improve public safety, and diversify the local economy.
Trump weighed in a week before the election – threatening D.C. home rule, which allows district residents to elect their own mayor and council, if Lewis George wins the mayoral primary. “I wouldn’t like it. Maybe we take back Washington and run it on the federal basis. We won’t put up with it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bowser, who has had her own trying journey with the administration, expressed her support for McDuffie, but stopped short of a full endorsement. “I have always supported Kenyan McDuffie… [but] I’m not endorsing or making any endorsements for mayor because I’m stepping off the political stage,” said Bowser during an Axios event on June 10.
During interviews with The Guardian, both leading candidates outlined how they would stand up to the current administration.
Lewis George said she plans to build relationships with members of Congress while also looking for areas of compromise with the Trump administration.
“My approach to Donald Trump is one where I set a line that there is going to have to be [that] DC autonomy and DC statehood are non-negotiables, our immigrant community and neighbors, our Black youth are non-negotiables,” said Lewis George. “But if there are things you want to work with together, I’m happy to do that… I look at Union Station as an opportunity to build and create a regional transit hub and create jobs for our city.”
If elected, McDuffie said he would be a “fighter” for Washingtonians, working with the Attorney General to preserve D.C. home rule.
“Washington, D.C. residents deserve leaders who will never back down from Congress or the White House when they attempt to undermine our autonomy, and I have consistently opposed federal interference in DC’s local affairs and fought to protect our rights to govern ourselves,” he said. “We know as local officials what’s best for local Washington, D.C., and we are really working hard to make sure that we can protect our home rule.”
In response to increased federal immigration activity in the city, Lewis George said she would rescind former Chief of Police Pamela Smith’s executive order, which directs Metropolitan Police Department officers to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement for individuals not in police custody.
“Our officers need to be focused on getting guns off our streets and solving crimes. It is not their jobs to be alongside or babysitting or transporting federal immigration officers across the city to wreak havoc on our communities in our neighborhoods,” she said.
McDuffie offered a different approach.
“On day one, I’m going to appoint a police chief and a chancellor of our school system, and to make sure that we have an interagency coordinated effort to tackle the biggest challenge facing Washington, D.C. residents right now, which is affordability,” said McDuffie.
Throughout this election, Democratic candidates have pushed to distance themselves from Trump while attempting to connect him and Republicans to their opponents, and ramped up attacks on each others campaigns.
In a recent televised debate on NBC4 Washington, Lewis George accused McDuffie of accepting “tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s supporters,” though it’s actually a relatively small number of donors who have given to both Trump and McDuffie.
“My principal opponent has been running a disinformation campaign that rivals Trump in spreading rumors and innuendo about donors to my campaign,” McDuffie told The Guardian. “The reality is I have largely 99.9% of my donations have come from Democrats and independents who agree that I am best qualified to lead Washington, D.C. and make our city safer and more affordable.”
Days before the election, the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance fined Lewis George $16,000 after it investigated her campaign for improperly coordinating with unions that also manage an independent political action committee.
The campaign said it will appeal the order, calling it a “reckless order…riddled with factual errors.” Lewis George’s team also raised concerns about the process. “Filing an order without legal merit just before an election follows a disturbing pattern of OCF’s conduct,” said the campaign in a written statement.
“I want [voters] to see through the political attacks and this political strategy to try to muddy the waters. It is clear that there is a candidate in this race who is accepting Trump donor dollars, big Trump donor dollars, and that is my opponent, Mr. McDuffie, who has accepted those dollars and refused to return them,” said Lewis George before the OCF decision.
Conservative dollars have also appeared in the race to replace Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city’s non-voting House Delegate for Congress. Five Democratic candidates are running to succeed Norton, and one of the more well-known candidates, Brooke Pinto, also a city councilmember, has reportedly received nearly $170,000 from donors who have also contributed to Trump and other Republican candidates in the past.
In a social media video response, Pinto said five of her donors out of nearly 2,000 have previously donated to Trump, adding that her opponent, Robert White, also has donors who have given to the president.
“The difference, though, is that I understand what it means to build a broad tent coalition. I have support from Democratic socialists, and Democrats, and independents, and yes, even Republicans,” said Pinto in the video. “It’s time that we have someone in this seat who can work with a broad set of stakeholders to make sure that those values are carried out.”
Currently, Lewis George has an 11-point lead over McDuffie, according to a new poll released by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. After the top frontrunners, these candidates are also on the ballot for D.C. Mayor: Rini Sampath, Vincent Orange, Gary Goodweather, Ernest Johnson, and Hope Solomon.
The June 16 primary also marks the first election using ranked choice voting in Washington, D.C.
