I grew up in a neighborhood in Northeast Washington called Stronghold. In the 1980s, the crack epidemic tore through our community, the National Guard arrived, adults I had known my whole life were lost to addiction and violence, and I was arrested three times as a teenager. I watched a city treat young Black men from my neighborhood as problems to be managed instead of investing in their promise and uplifting their potential.
But I also learned what opportunity looks like and how a single opening, a hand extended at the right moment, can change the entire trajectory of a person’s life. I am living proof that it can.
Washington is facing a cascade of challenges: a president who thinks of himself as a king, National Guard troops on our streets, a strained economy, and a continued unacceptably high level of crime and violence. The stakes in this election are higher than they have been in generations.
No city in America has absorbed more direct damage from Trump 2.0 than D.C. He has turned our city into a personal political project: disappearing our immigrant neighbors; gutting tens of thousands of jobs without cause or remorse; and discouraging tourists from experiencing the monuments, museums, neighborhoods, and history that make Washington, D.C. unlike any city in the world. He is determined to reduce the nation's capital to a political instrument.
That challenge demands a mayor who is serious and has both grit and a proven track record of getting shi*t done. Washington deserves nothing less.
The blows have landed in rapid succession. Trump deployed the National Guard into our neighborhoods and weaponized ICE against our immigrant community. With DOGE, his administration has gutted tens of thousands of federal jobs, shredding the middle class that has long anchored our local economy.
D.C.’s CFO reports that federal job losses in the District in 2025 alone resulted in a net loss of 22,356 jobs and close to $3.7 billion in annualized pay. These cuts affect working families, renters and homeowners, parents and caretakers, and customers of our small and local businesses. When their paychecks disappear, the damage radiates outward through every ward in this city.
An economy that is facing structural challenges cannot tax its way to resurgence; it must grow and diversify. As mayor, my administration will expand D.C.'s economy by cutting the permitting and administrative delays that drive businesses away; recruiting companies to relocate to D.C. from high-demand sectors (tourism and hospitality, AI, tech, and the care economy); connecting displaced federal workers to the jobs they create; converting soon-to-be-vacant federal real estate into anchors for small businesses, offices, and housing; and investing in a world-class public transit as the backbone of workforce access.
But growth that concentrates at the top is a story Washington has lived before. While we built a booming city in the 2000s and 2010s, we also displaced thousands of Black residents in the process. Every economic development decision my administration makes will ensure that growth comes with guardrails, and longtime residents will be at the center of every opportunity for upward mobility. Economic growth will be inclusive across all communities, connected to our residents in need, anchored by proven tools and strategies, and fiscally disciplined.
To protect immigrant families living under the threat of ICE, I will end the Metropolitan Police Department’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement on day one. D.C. police will not act as federal immigration agents or share residents' immigration status with ICE. And I will not accept federal law enforcement operating in D.C. neighborhoods without advance notice to D.C. authorities and coordination with local officials.
Above all, I will launch aCivil Gideon-style program connecting immigrant families to legal representation through the DC Bar so families facing deportation proceedings have additional assistance from the city. Every Washingtonian, regardless of immigration status, should be able to call for help, report a crime, and access justice without fear.
The 1973 Home Rule Act is the legal foundation of our democracy as a city, and I will not give its enemies in the Republican Party and White House a pretext to dismantle it. Some of the loudest GOP voices in the country are watching this race with barely concealed excitement, hoping for a D.C. mayor like my opponent, who could stumble on public safety and hand a hostile Congress the pretext to revoke our right to self-governance.
But D.C.’s interests do not require reflexive opposition to every federal action or area of disagreement. They require a mayor who can tell the difference between a fight worth having and an opportunity worth building on. We cannot afford a mayor who allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Every decision I make as mayor will return to the same core question: What is best for the people of Washington, D.C.? What is best for the federal worker who lost a stable job and needs a path that returns them to stability and the ability to continue to call D.C. home, the immigrant family calculating their risk every morning to go to work, the kid growing up in Stronghold right now?
I know what it means when a city works for you, and I will fight and deliver to ensure it works for ALL D.C.
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