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The backdrop
D.C. is at a crossroads, with its economy battered by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce, downtown suffering a post-pandemic hangover, and Republicans in Congress and the White House more willing to aggressively interfere in the city’s local affairs.
Whoever takes over for Mayor Muriel Bowser and gets seated on the D.C. Council will be faced with the unenviable task of needing to do more with fewer resources than the city became accustomed to over the past decade. And it won’t just be about governing D.C., but imagining what the city will be in the future — and putting forth a plan to actually get there.
Register: Aside from a special election for the independent At-Large seat, the contests on the June 16 ballot are primary races, which means only registered Democrats, Republicans, and Statehood Green Party members can vote. If you’re an independent or want to change your party affiliation, you can do so — but it has to be before May 26. After that, you’re locked in with whatever party you're registered with, or no party at all.
If you’re not yet registered to vote in D.C., you can do so here. The deadline is May 26, unless you’re registering in person. Voters can also register in person at polling places, both during early voting and on Election Day itself. To take advantage of this, bring proof of residence (a D.C.-issued ID, a utility bill, bank statement, or pay stub will do); if not, you’ll vote using a provisional ballot and will have to verify your D.C. residence afterward for the ballot to count.
Note: Non-citizens are also able to register, though they can only vote in local races.
And remember, aside from a special election for the independent At-large seat, the contests on the June 16 ballot are primary races, which means that only registered Democrats, Republicans, and Statehood Green Party members can take part. If you’re an independent or want to change your party affiliation, you can do so – but it has to be before May 26. After that, you’re locked in with whatever party you have registered with, or no party at all. (You may be asking: Didn’t D.C. voters approve a measure that would open partisan primaries to independent voters? Yes, they did. The council hasn’t funded it, though, so it hasn’t taken effect.)
Mail: If you’re already a registered D.C. voter, the D.C. Board of Elections has sent you a ballot in the mail. (If you didn’t get one, you have until June 1 to request one.) Once filled out, you can either mail it back or drop it off at any of the dozens of ballot drop boxes around the city starting May 22 (find all the locations here). If you opt to use the postal service, just make sure your ballot is postmarked by June 16 at the latest.
Early: If you like voting in person but don’t want to wait in line on Election Day, D.C. runs a week of early voting from June 8 -14. Find early voting centers here; hours will be from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters can also drop off mail ballots at early voting centers.
Election Day: If you’re a traditionalist, Election Day is June 16, and polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can cast a ballot anywhere you want, no need to choose the location closest to your house. All the locations are here. If you’re a real procrastinator, just know that as long as you’re in line by 8 p.m., you’ll be allowed to vote.
What you need to know about ranked-choice voting
Now, this election isn’t just about who you’ll be voting for — but also how you’ll be voting. That’s right: Ranked-choice voting is finally here.
If a race has more than three candidates, you can rank up to five in order of your preference. (So if there are 10 candidates in a particular race, you can only rank five of them.)
Votes are counted in rounds. If a candidate gets more than 50% of first-place rankings, they win. If they don’t, the lowest-performing candidate gets dropped, and the second-place rankings from voters who put that last-place candidate first get added to the remaining candidates. This process continues until someone clears the 50% threshold.
Here are some important basics:
You don’t have to rank more than one person: If you want to vote for a single person, you can. That just means if your candidate gets dropped, you won’t have a say in later rounds of vote counting.
You can’t give the same ranking to multiple candidates: Each candidate you rank has to have their own spot on your ballot. So if Peter, Paul, and Mary are in the same race, you can’t rank both Paul and Mary in second place.
Don’t skip too many rankings: You can rank a candidate first and then skip to ranking other candidates third, fourth, or fifth. But if you skip two consecutive rankings — say you rank candidates first, fourth, and fifth — you run the risk that your later rankings will be considered invalid.
Mail ballots will include instructions on how to use ranked-choice voting. But you can also check this helpful tutorial from Rank the District, and the elections board’s website has an overview, videos, webinars, and a fictional ice cream ballot you can practice on.
The elections board has cautioned that RCV’s introduction will mean that some contests could remain unsettled for days after the election, mostly because of late-arriving mail ballots. The first round of results after polls close on Election Day will only include how many #1 rankings each candidate got.
The races on the ballot
Local D.C. elections operate on a cycle: Every two years, different seats are up for grabs. We’re in the phase where voters choose nominees for mayor, attorney general, D.C. delegate to Congress, D.C. Council chairman, an at-large councilmember; and councilmembers for wards 1, 3, 5, and 6.
The winners of the June primaries will go on to face candidates from other parties in November. This election also includes a special election contest where all D.C. voters can choose an At-Large councilmember for the remainder of this term (see more below).
Mayor
This year’s mayoral primary is one of the most consequential and competitive in D.C.’s history – certainly in the last 12 years — after Bowser decided not to run for a fourth term.
Seven people are vying for the Democratic nomination to replace her: Gary Goodweather, Janeese Lewis George, Ernest Johnson, Kenyan McDuffie, Vincent Orange, Rini Sampath, and Hope Solomon. They will go on to face candidates from other parties in the general election in November, though, in practice, the Democratic primary is generally the de facto election in liberal D.C.
The two apparent frontrunners — current Ward 4 councilmember Janeese Lewis George and former At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie — have plenty in common on paper. Both are native Washingtonians, attorneys, and former D.C. Public Schools students; both have a connection to the U.S. Postal Service (McDuffie was a letter carrier after high school, Lewis George’s mother worked at a post office); and each entered public service early (McDuffie as a prosecutor in Prince George’s County and then the Department of Justice; Lewis George as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and then D.C.).
And in many cases, they don’t differ much on the bigger points of what they would like to accomplish. On housing, a perennial issue, they want to help bring down costs by building a lot more of it. On public safety, they both agree that the Metropolitan Police Department needs to hire more police officers. The differences become much more apparent in the scale and scope of what they’re proposing to do.
In general, Lewis George falls into the progressive camp; she is a democratic socialist, after all. McDuffie, on the other hand, is seen as more moderate or centrist, not exactly unlike Bowser.
On housing, Lewis George wants to build 72,000 units of housing in five years, double what Bowser did in roughly the same time frame. McDuffie argues this is unrealistic; he’s instead proposing to build 12,000 new units and preserve 20,000 existing affordable ones. Lewis George says he isn’t thinking big enough.
McDuffie also argues that Lewis George isn’t willing enough to scale back on tenant protections that the real estate industry claims is helping drive investors out of D.C.; Lewis George says those tenant protections are being used as a scapegoat, and that plenty of construction happened in the city in recent years when they were in place.
On food access, Lewis George has floated the idea of building a public grocery store east of the Anacostia River, much like fellow democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani; McDuffie is pushing for more traditional incentives to get private grocers to open there, pointing to a Lidl that opened in Ward 8 as an example of what’s realistically possible.
On childcare, Lewis George isn’t going as far as Mamdani and saying it will be free, but she does want to expand an existing subsidy so that it eventually applies to every family in D.C. — and no one pays more than 7% of their income for care. McDuffie, on the other hand, wants to expand a local Child Tax Credit, which would give families a little extra cash to pay for childcare. Lewis George says this doesn’t come close to addressing the scale of the problem; McDuffie says her proposal would be too expensive.
Lewis George’s ambitious agenda would require new revenue, and she has proposed imposing a new Business Activity Tax that would hit law firms, lobbyists, and consultants who currently don’t have to pay the city’s business taxes. McDuffie is opposed; with the city having lost so many federal government and related private sector jobs, he says the next mayor should focus on making D.C. a more business-friendly place.
When it comes to schools, both McDuffie and Lewis George agree on one general principle: mayoral control should remain in place. But Lewis George wants to do away with the IMPACT teacher evaluation system — which ranks teachers and offers pay increases to those deemed most effective — because of concerns that have repeatedly been raised by the Washington Teachers Union, while McDuffie does not. She also wants to make the Office of the State Superintendent for Education independent; in his time on the council, McDuffie didn’t sign on to bills that would have done that.
As the two have traded barbed attacks, McDuffie argues Lewis George’s record on the council is thin and that she’s cast troubling votes on public safety; Lewis George counters that McDuffie hasn’t been an effective legislator and is too close to lobbyists and special interests, including Pepco.
The candidates’ leftist vs. establishment bona fides are evident in their endorsements. Lewis George is supported by virtually all of the local labor unions; fellow lawmakers Brianne Nadeau, Charles Allen, and Robert White; and progressive groups like the local chapter of the democratic socialists. McDuffie, on the other hand, has drawn endorsements from former mayor Anthony Williams and former Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, trade groups representing realtors and builders, and centrist Democrat group DMV New Liberals.
Real estate developer Gary Goodweather paints himself as a reliable alternative, a U.S. Army veteran with local business experience who can appeal to progressives (he’s pitching free Metro for residents) and moderates alike (slash red tape and timelines for construction and business licensing).
Former councilmember Vincent Orange — who has unsuccessfully run for mayor in the past — says he’s got government experience and an eye for how to make it work better. He wants to dig through the budget to find waste and money not being spent where it should be.
Federal government contractor Rini Sampath says she’s all about execution; she’ll only propose new programs and initiatives once the D.C. government can get the basics right, from picking up trash and clearing snow to moving low-income residents into affordable housing units quickly.
Former federal worker Hope Solomon also wants more focus on core functions, as well as a government that is more friendly to small businesses.
And longshot contender Ernest Johnson wants to hold developers to account for what they built, hire 3,000 teenagers to clean up D.C., and tear up the Commanders stadium deal.
Want to get to know the candidates further? The 51st, The Washington Informer, and SpotlightDC hosted a forum in April; you can re-watch it here. The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance also held its own debate featuring all the candidates on the ballot, and McDuffie and Lewis George squared off against each other in a WUSA9 debate last month.
D.C. Attorney General
The D.C. attorney general has a number of roles: the office defends city agencies during litigation; it prosecutes people, businesses, and institutions that break the city’s laws; and it independently litigates on residents' behalf, suing businesses and the federal government to change policies and practices. But it’s a strange position because of D.C.’s lack of statehood. While the attorney general can prosecute non-violent and juvenile crimes, more serious crimes fall under the purview of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., who is appointed by the president.
For the last four years, Brian Schwalb has served as the city’s attorney general, and he’s both leaned into its power and been criticized for how he uses it, particularly with regard to juvenile crime.
But he has also been criticized for his office’s response to a significant uptick in juvenile crime that occurred in 2023, some of it driven by carjackings committed by teenagers.
“We’ve been in a crime crisis the entire time Mr. Schwalb has been in office,” said J.P. Szymkowicz, a private attorney who is challenging Schwalb, at a recent debate. Szymkowicz (who once sued former Commanders owner Dan Snyder over restrictions on pedestrians walking to the field on game days) says he would more aggressively prosecute juveniles, both so victims get accountability and kids can get help.
Schwalb has pushed back; he says his office prosecuted 85% of the cases police brought him, and he also wrote legislation — which the council approved — to improve services at the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which handles kids who have been convicted of crimes.
Szymkowicz faces an uphill battle against Schwalb. He’s only raised $5,000 for his campaign; Schwalb, on the other hand, has taken in more than $1.3 million.
D.C. Delegate
The city’s non-voting delegate in the House doesn’t have much formal authority, but over more than 30 years in the seat, Eleanor Holmes Norton carved out a powerful and well-regarded role defending D.C.’s interests, often against significant odds. Her decision not to run for reelection has prompted a fascinating debate over what the city’s residents should expect from their new delegate — and who can best serve that role.
Pinto and White are best known to the general public because they both currently serve on the D.C. Council, but there’s no dearth of experience amongst the remaining three: Holbrook was a legislative aide to Norton for eight years; Jaczko is a physicist and former federal nuclear regulator; and Zalesne has worked in the federal government, private sector, and most recently as a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.
All of them coincide on one point: They would continue the push for statehood, which made historic advances six years ago when the House twice advanced a bill that would admit D.C. to the union as the 51st state. But in the meantime, they have different ideas about how to protect and promote the city’s interests.
Holbrook, for his part, says he would continue Norton’s practice of fighting for home rule in battles big and small, and argues that his experience on the Hill means he could deliver for D.C. more quickly and effectively than his competitors. Zalesne says that she can leverage her existing relationships in Congress, would create a new local caucus among the region’s legislators, and wants to draw public attention to D.C.’s plight.
Jaczko says he would push for legislation to exempt D.C. wants D.C. from federal taxation until it gets statehood. White says he would pursue a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, push the federal government to transfer more land and buildings to local control, and advocate for the city to get Puerto Rico-style tax breaks for businesses. Pinto wants more designated zones in the city where investors get federal tax benefits, but also says she would focus her efforts on lowering housing costs by repealing the federal Height Act and making rent tax-deductible..
Read our profiles of them here. SpotlightDC, The 51st, and The Washington Informer also hosted a debate between the candidates in May, which you can re-watch here.
D.C. Council Chairman
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has spent the better part of three decades in the city’s legislature, and it looks like he’s on his way to four more as D.C.’s second-most-powerful elected official. While it seemed like Mendelson would face at least a nominal challenge from former Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans earlier this year, that came apart in March when Evans failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Former Ward 7 ANC commissioner Patricia Stamper is running as a write-in.
D.C. Council: At-Large, Democrats
There are four At-Large seats on the council, and in any given election cycle two of them are up for grabs.
The first seat, currently occupied by Councilmember Anita Bonds, is opening up for the first time in 13 years (she announced in December that she wouldn’t run again).
It’s an extremely diverse bunch. There’s two former council staffers, a former DCPS principal, a former chair of the D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustment, a pharmacist, a labor leader, a former member of the State Board of Education, a former member of the Biden administration, and an author of a children’s book. Many of them have different interests and priorities: housing, public schools and the University of the District of Columbia, stemming the tide of gun violence, and improving the business climate in D.C., among others.
In addition to navigating the nine Democrats running in the At-Large primary for Bonds’ seat, D.C. voters are also choosing an independent candidate in a special election. (This contest may be easy to miss on your ballot; it’s way at the end, so keep looking through all the pages!)
This was the seat occupied by Kenyan McDuffie, who resigned in late January to run for mayor. The winner of this election will only serve out the last six months of McDuffie’s term; they’ll also have to win the general election in November to earn the seat for a full four-year term.
If that’s not confusing enough, there’s also political drama to follow: Doni Crawford, a former McDuffie staffer who is temporarily holding his seat, is running to keep the job. One of her competitors is Elissa Silverman, a former two-term councilmember who was unseated in 2022 by … McDuffie. And they are joined in the race by Jacque Patterson, a former ANC commissioner in Ward 8, charter school administrator, and the current president of the D.C. State Board of Education.
In her pitch to voters, Silverman touts the role she played in creating D.C.’s paid family leave program and her oversight of D.C. agencies when she was on the council. Silverman also says she’ll work better with critics and opponents as she crafts legislation this time around. If elected again, she says she’ll focus on asking agencies “those hard questions” to improve how they spend money and deliver services. (Silverman has been endorsed by a number of labor unions, Greater Greater Washington, the Sierra Club, and others.)
Crawford is new in the role, but was a well-regarded staffer and points out that she was unanimously chosen by her colleagues to hold the seat until the special election. (Before joining McDuffie’s staff, she worked at the left-leaning D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.) Most recently, she successfully amended a bill allowing D.C. to declare 8 p.m. teen curfew zones to require the city to also offer more alternative programming for teens.
Despite his other roles in D.C. government (and past runs for the council), Patterson says he’s the “fresh face” in the race, someone who is connected to the community and will bring that to the council. He says he wants to focus on making D.C. more friendly to small businesses and making the tough budget choices the city needs. (Patterson argues that D.C. needs to stop offering TANF benefits beyond 60 months, for example, which is the cutoff for federal reimbursement.)
Crawford and Patterson have formed an electoral alliance by asking their supporters to rank the other candidate second on their ballots. “D.C. does not need to go backwards to fix what’s broken,” said Crawford about the move.
Want to watch the three candidates in action? Here’s a recent debate. And remember: No matter who wins in June, they’ll have to face voters again in November.
In what’s traditionally considered D.C.’s most progressive ward, most of the candidates offer flavors of progressivism. Raj, who has raised the most money and racked up endorsements, is the furthest left. Running as a democratic socialist, she is making big promises of stronger rent control and free childcare. Brown, who has earned Nadeau’s endorsement, says she would focus on housing, restoring tenant rights under the city’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act and investing more money in emergency rental assistance and aid for first-time homebuyers. Trindade Deramo, who like Brown is an ANC commissioner, says he would pitch measures to ease housing construction and improve transit. The pair have formed a political alliance, each encouraging their supporters to rank the other candidate second on their ballots. (Nadeau has similarly said she will be ranking Trindade Deramo second.)
Lynch thinks solving big problems starts small; he is known for filing thousands of 311 requests and wants D.C. to get better at delivering basic services. Reyes Yanes, a former Bowser administration staffer who would be the first Latina elected to the council if she wins, says the city needs to do more to support small businesses, including less red tape and lower taxes.
One issue they all agree on, though, is pushing to end local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Back in 2022, Matt Frumin won a crowded Democratic primary and then the general election to become Ward 3 councilmember. This time around, he’s not facing any competition at all.
Parker is considered a progressive member of the council, although not dogmatically so. He’s best known for championing a new Local Child Tax Credit (worth $1,000 per kid for low-and moderate-income families), adding additional labor protections and benefits to the Commanders stadium deal, and his oversight of the D.C. agencies charged with child welfare and rehabilitation (last year, he introduced a 16-bill package addressing everything from higher pay for summer jobs to reducing truancy.)
French, who works on clean energy policy, announced her bid for the seat in March, pledging to focus on lowering residents’ monthly bills (with a particular emphasis on utilities), making it easier to open and operate small businesses, and improving overall government services, especially for families. “We don’t need more programs — we need the ones we already fund to actually work together,” she says.
Carmichael, a senior member of the D.C. Democratic Party and a former D.C. government employee, is promoting what she calls Future of Ward 5 Legislation, a package of bills that would increase standards for Community Benefits Agreements that are negotiated between developers and residents when big projects are built, spur revitalization of commercial corridors in the ward, and provide more workforce development and job opportunities for native Washingtonians. She also wants to build 36,000 units of housing a year, 20,000 of them for low- and moderate-income residents. (For context, Bowser got 36,000 built in five years.)
D.C. Council: Ward 6
Nadeau, Bonds, and Bowser may have decided against a fourth term in office, but Charles Allen is going for it. He’s not running unopposed, though: Gloria Nauden and Michael Murphy are challenging him.
In his three terms in office, Allen has notched a number of legislative accomplishments: He wrote the bill that created the the Books-From-Birth initiative; created the Fair Elections program that offers candidates matching public funds if they forgo corporate contributions; helped increase D.C.’s funding for Metro; and wrote a sweeping traffic-safety bill that, among other things, allows the city to go after out-of-state drivers who rack up unpaid fines. Allen also made a name for himself as a consistent critic of public financing for a new Commanders stadium at RFK, though he ultimately voted for the deal — after he says he made a number of changes to it.
Allen has been endorsed by a number of progressive groups — including the Sierra Club, Jews United for Justice, and Greater Greater Washington — as well as unions and the D.C. Association of Realtors.
But Allen certainly has his critics, notably those in the ward — and in Congress — who argue that, during his time chairing the council’s judiciary and public safety committee, he endorsed soft-on-crime legislation. Those concerns prompted an unsuccessful effort to recall him from office in 2024 and are also animating both Nauden and Murphy’s campaigns.
Nauden — a former ANC commissioner and current CEO of Philanthropy DMV — says she would increase MPD staffing while also expanding youth workforce programs. Murphy, a litigator, similarly wants more police officers while pledging to address the current accusations that department officials fudged crime data and revisiting provisions of the Youth Rehabilitation Act, which gives teens chances to avoid jail time.
Allen says public safety is also a priority: He counters that he supported teen curfew zones to prevent teen takeovers of areas like Navy Yard and voted for a bill that increases pre-trial detention of people charged with violent crimes.
On many other issues, the three candidates largely coincide. They favor bringing down costs to increase housing production, increasing support for small businesses and corridors throughout Ward 6, and adding transit options for residents.
Here’s a recent debate between the three candidates.
Party officials
Now it’s time for the true inside baseball. If you’re a registered Democrat, you’ll be asked to vote for a variety of committeeman positions within the local Democratic Party. These are leadership positions that help determine the party’s overall direction in D.C.
There are two at-large seats up for grabs; all Democratic voters get to weigh in on those. (And you get to vote for more than one person.) You’ll also get to choose a committeeman to represent the ward you live in. (There are similar seats up for grabs on the Republican side, though none are contested.) Finally, all Democratic voters will be asked to elect a national committeeman, essentially someone who will serve as a representative of the local Democratic Party at the national level.
Among Democrats, you’re not picking from different meals here, but rather choosing how spicy you want your food to be. The different candidates have aligned themselves in two separate slates: the Free D.C. Slate and Democrats United to Free D.C. Generally speaking, the former is more progressive, while the latter is more establishment.
Does any of this, you know, matter? Practically speaking, the internal machinations of the local Democratic Party don’t have much of an impact on residents’ daily life. But which faction leads the party could have some influence next year. That’s because if an At-Large council seat currently held by a Democrat is suddenly vacated, the Democratic Party has the power to appoint an interim councilmember until a special election is called. And that’s quite possible, considering that Robert White is a frontrunner in the D.C. delegate race.
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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