Bowser bows out, saying she won’t run for a fourth term as mayor

Mayor Muriel Bowser has made some significant pre-Thanksgiving news, announcing that she won’t be seeking a fourth term in office next year.

In a video released on Tuesday afternoon, Bowser hailed the accomplishments of her three terms in office — including bringing the Commanders back to D.C. and record levels of spending on affordable housing — while saying that it was time to pass the baton. 

“I know we've laid the groundwork for others to build upon, to reshape and grow D.C.'s economy, establish D.C. as the 51st state, and protect our investments in affordable housing, transportation, public safety, and public schools. And to build a world-class stadium, housing, recreation, and parks at RFK,” she said. “You and I have built a legacy of success of which I am intensely proud.”

Bowser’s decision to step away will open up the 2026 mayoral race that has so far been quiet — largely because lawmakers have been waiting to see what she would do. There are growing hints that Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George will jump in as a Zohran Mamdani-like progressive, while At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie has openly mulled running as a business-friendly alternative. (Local developer Gary Goodweather is in the race already.) 

Bowser declined to say if she will endorse a candidate in an interview with the Washington Post this week. She also didn’t say what she plans to do next. 

The 53-year-old D.C. native came into office in 2015 pledging to continue the city’s economic growth while ensuring that more residents could enjoy the benefits of it. And for most of her time as mayor, Bowser did preside over a booming local economy, steady increases in tax revenue, and the growth of buzzy new neighborhoods like Navy Yard, Union Market, and The Wharf — but Black D.C. residents have continued to be displaced.

Both celebrated and criticized for being a pragmatist, Bowser’s time in office has been marked by contrasting advances and setbacks. 

While she did more to push the cause of D.C. statehood than any of her predecessors — resulting in two House votes to admit the city to the union as the 51st state — she has more recently been criticized for being overly accommodating to President Donald Trump.

In a high-profile act of resistance during Trump’s first term, Bowser had Black Lives Matter painted on the road leading up to the White House; earlier this year, she willingly deconstructed it. And while Bowser once committed city money to helping immigrants pay for lawyers, she has faced residents’ fury over the Metropolitan Police Department’s cooperation with ICE in recent months. Still, she has called preserving the city’s autonomy her “north star” and her efforts to appease the president — at least thus far — appear to have prevented him from more fully taking over the city.

Meanwhile, the mayor managed to close the long-troubled D.C. General family homeless shelter and replace it with a network of smaller shelters located across the city (which she told the Post was probably the hardest thing she’s done in office), but her administration’s more recent approach to clearing homeless encampments has drawn criticism from advocates. Her goal to build 36,000 housing units in D.C. was achieved ahead of schedule and she put some $1.5 billion towards the construction of affordable housing, though the city remains in the grip of a housing crisis and evictions have surged past pre-pandemic levels.

Bowser has long been at odds with the D.C. Council over some of its criminal justice and public safety reforms, but her administration has also struggled to address problems at the crime lab and within the Office of Unified Communications, which is responsible for dispatching first responders after 911 calls. And while D.C.’s population hit 700,000 people during her time in office, the longstanding gaps between white and Black residents remain on measures ranging from personal wealth to educational achievement. 

Her three terms in office saw a series of historic events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and the January 6 insurrection, during which scores of D.C. police officers were dispatched to clear the U.S. Capitol after it was overrun by Trump supporters. 

The mayor has been notoriously quiet about her private life, and caught the city by surprise in 2018 when she announced she had adopted her now 7-year-old daughter, Miranda. 

After a decade in office, Bowser’s legacy is firmly imprinted on D.C. And nowhere will that be more evident than at the decrepit RFK campus, where she helped negotiate a $3.7 billion deal for a new Commanders stadium that is expected to open in 2030.

She says the new stadium represents her vision of shifting the city’s economy away from its reliance on federal employment; critics say it only proves that she was all too willing to hand billions of public dollars to billionaires while cutting funding for programs like emergency rental assistance. (Bowser also secured $500 million to help renovate the Capital One Arena and keep the Washington Wizards and Capitals in the city.)

Still, that she managed to wrest more control of RFK from the federal government and helped bring back the Commanders is also testament to her patience; she's been promising to revitalize the 190-acre campus for almost the entire time she has been in office.