There’s been a raucous debate. Attack ads are starting to appear. Allied groups have lined up behind their preferred candidates, and they’ve got plenty of money to spend. Battle lines — on policy, at least — have been drawn. And for a variety of reasons, New York City is in the mix.
With three months to go until D.C.’s June 16 primary, the mayoral race headlined by Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George and former Ward 5 councilmember Kenyan McDuffie — and including at least a half-dozen other contenders — has finally gone from snoozy to spicy.
It’s the city’s first open mayoral race in more than a decade, and it comes at a time of profound uncertainty and change. The economy is suffering from cuts to the federal workforce, D.C.’s budget has consequently gotten leaner, and the city remains under constantthreat of further intervention from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
Lewis George jumped into the race late last year, followed by McDuffie in January. The two had their first head-to-head matchup at a debate in an Anacostia church last weekend sponsored by Free D.C. and the show didn’t disappoint. The two leading contenders took big swings at each other, and at one point McDuffie walked off stage in apparent protest of attacks coming from Lewis George. If this was a preview of things to come, it’s likely to be a contentious primary.
There’s plenty of campaigning left to go — including The 51st co-hosting a debate with The Washington Informer and Spotlight DC on April 20 at the MLK Memorial Library. But, thus far, the early race has been shaped by jabs over experience and affordability issues, while drawing comparisons to New York City’s mayoral race — including the role of significant funding from outside groups.
The benefits, and baggage, of experience
One of the principal battle lines is over experience: McDuffie, with 14 years on the council, says he has it in spades, and he’s been criticizing Lewis George for not having enough. (She joined the council in 2020.)
“Some candidates think it’s OK to campaign on sound bytes and social media. They’re hitching their wagons to other people’s bills because they have no record to run on,” said McDuffie at last weekend’s forum in Anacostia. He added that his campaign was “not about rhetoric, it is about results.”
That sentiment was echoed by former Ward 3 councilmember Mary Cheh, who earlier this month said she was endorsing McDuffie because he “has proven that he can get things done.” McDuffie has also been endorsed by former mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly and Maryland Senator Angela Alsobrooks.
But Lewis George and her supporters have tried to turn McDuffie’s experience against him, saying that for all his time on the council he hasn’t seriously addressed some of the problems he said he would fix if elected mayor.
“He’s been piss poor at oversight. Not showing up for oversight around housing, not showing up for oversight around education, around transportation. He’s been MIA, missing in action, on oversight work and lackluster on legislation,” countered Lewis George in an interview after the same debate. (We reached out to McDuffie’s campaign this week, but did not hear back.)
Lewis George added that McDuffie has been too close to special interests in his time on the council, particularly since he took over the chairmanship of the council’s business and economic development committee.
But McDuffie has argued that his experience has produced real results. On fighting economic disparities between Black and white residents in D.C., McDuffie spearheaded legislation to pilot a guaranteed basic income for low-income women and create a Baby Bonds program, which would have set aside $1,000 a year in an investment account for poor newborn children (it was cut from the mayor’s budget.)
For her part, Lewis George said she helped pass the 2021 tax increase on wealthy households that was used to bolster funding for housing vouchers and for pay hikes for child care workers. She authored it alongside Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, who has endorsed Lewis George. (At-Large Councilmember Robert White, who challenged Bowser in 2022, is also backing her.)
As they go after each other over experience, both Lewis George and McDuffie are similarly coming under attack from other mayoral candidates on that very issue. Developer Gary Goodweather has tried to insert himself into the race as a pragmatic alternative with experience in the private sector, while newcomer Rini Sampath is touting her time working in the federal government as proof that she can fix what ails D.C.’s government. Former councilmember Vincent Orange is also in the mix, saying his legislative record shows he can run the city without an “ideology agenda.”
The debate over experience has quickly spilled over into a high-voltage issue this year: the spiking electricity bills that many D.C. residents are seeing, who’s responsible for them, and who can help bring them down. And it’s a critical fight for both McDuffie and Lewis George, who have focused a large part of their candidacies on making D.C. more affordable.
During Saturday’s debate, Lewis George said McDuffie — who served as the chair of the council’s business and economic development committee, which oversees the Public Service Commission and utilities in the city — failed to take action.
“Under this chair,” she said, referring to McDuffie, “your utilities have gone up every month.”
That accusation prompted one of McDuffie’s most spirited responses, accusing Lewis George of not doing anything herself. “You've got a candidate who talks about utility costs … she hasn’t introduced a single piece of legislation to deal with the problem,” he said.
McDuffie also said that Lewis George had voted to approve the very members of the Public Service Commission — the body that actually approves rate increases requested by utility companies — that she was accusing him of turning a blind eye to.
As Axios D.C. helpfully reported this week, there’s elements of truth to what both of them are saying — as well as exaggerations. The now-controversial members of the Public Service Commission, for example, cleared the council over the last few years with the support of both McDuffie and Lewis George. And ultimately, the Public Service Commission controls rate increases — not the council.
Still, Lewis George and her allies in D.C.’s environmental movement are pressing hard on Pepco and the issue of utility costs more broadly. Lewis George has unveiled a 10-point plan on keeping utility costs down, including expanding the use of solar power on government projects, cooperating with regional leaders on holding data centers accountable for high electricity use, and appointing new members to the Public Service Commission. (She may be able to act on that sooner — two of them have to be re-confirmed before the end of April.)
Fights over experience and affordability are among the many ways that the Big Apple is looming large in the mayoral race.
Much like Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Lewis George is running as a democratic socialist. (She has been endorsed by a half-dozen unions.) Mamdani’s candidacy ended in a resounding victory last year over a better-known establishment contender in Andrew Cuomo, energizing the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and prompting a search for the nation’s next Mamdani-like candidate.
Is that Lewis George? McDuffie says it could be, but only in bad ways. “We’ve got a candidate who says she wants to run D.C. using a New York City playbook,” he said on the Dream City podcast earlier this month. He continued that line of attack at the Free D.C. debate, saying “D.C. is not New York City. Some people want to run on empty promises.”
McDuffie seems to be referring to Mamdani’s ambitious pledges — including free child care, free buses, and rent freezes in public housing — and arguing that Lewis George wouldn’t be able to fund her own affordability-heavy agenda. (McDuffie has also floated his own potentially costly policies, including freezing property taxes and implementing his Baby Bonds program.)
But the comparisons between Lewis George and Mamdani only go so far. He pledged free child care for New York City’s children; Lewis George is merely promising that it will be more affordable, using a plan that D.C. has had in place for almost a decade. And while Mamdani said he would make buses free; Lewis George recently told a pro-transit group that she “will make them free for everyone who needs it,” a far cry from a universal ticket to ride. (Goodweather is promising free buses, though.)
And on Thursday she unveiled her economic development platform; it includes proposals like a new private Downtown Development Corporation and public-private partnerships to revitalize downtown, along with new “innovation districts” anchored by universities. (Axios reported earlier this month that she has met with local business leaders to pitch her candidacy.)
Sampath, by contrast, has tried to avoid getting drawn into big debates over who is progressive and who is pragmatic; her campaign so far has focused more on having the D.C. government improve on the basics, whether it’s picking up the trash or clearing snow off of streets and sidewalks.
Lewis George hasn’t shied away from drawing New York into D.C.’s mayoral race herself, largely by comparing McDuffie to Cuomo. She told me McDuffie’s campaign is using the same colors and slogan — “Fight and deliver” — as Cuomo did, and that Cuomo similarly attacked Mamdani for not having enough experience. “I dismiss it as the Cuomo tactics,” she said.
Still, Lewis George and McDuffie agree on some major issues. They both say they would immediately end any cooperation between MPD and ICE, while being open to working with the Trump administration on economic development projects that benefit the city. They both oppose keeping Interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll on in a permanent capacity and don’t support extending the expanded juvenile curfew that has required that kids leave designated areas like Navy Yard and U Street at 8 p.m. on weekend nights.
The big money pouring into the mayoral race
As the race heats up, we’re starting to see outside money pour in.
A coalition of unions has raised $200,000 to spend on behalf of Lewis George’s candidacy; some voters have already reported receiving mailers funded by the group, known as Safe and Affordable D.C.
More big money, though, is untraceable – and targeting Lewis George. This week a generic-sounding new group calling itself the United D.C. Research Council paid for a TV ad saying she would increase taxes.
A spokesperson for the group said they aim to raise an estimated $1 million, but did not say how much they’ve actually raised thus far, nor did he name who is involved, saying only that they are “a small group of District residents who are very concerned about quality of life issues for all District residents and the state of the local economy.”
Even without all that extra money, Lewis George and McDuffie have both posted respectable fundraising hauls — she has pulled in $1.6 million, he’s gotten $1.5 million. Both are participating in the city’s public financing program, which provides matching money for every small contribution from a D.C. resident.
The fundraising and spending are only expected to ramp up over the next three months; Lewis George and McDuffie could each ultimately raise and spend $3.5 million on their respective campaigns.
Martin is a longtime reporter and editor in D.C. He formerly worked for WAMU 88.5 and DCist.com, and has contributed to the Washington City Paper and other publications. He's been in D.C. for 25 years, and tries to ride his bike everywhere he can.
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