Janeese Lewis George is on track to become the next mayor of Washington, D.C., after Kenyan McDuffie conceded the Democratic primary on Thursday.
Lewis George’s apparent victory will usher in a new era for the district and put her on a collision course with President Donald Trump for the final years of his term.
The Associated Press had not yet called the race at the time of McDuffie’s concession, but Lewis George has tracked ahead of McDuffie since vote-counting began on Tuesday in all but one of the city’s wards. In a statement, McDuffie said he had called Lewis George “to congratulate her on her victory and wish her success as she prepares for the general election.”
Lewis George would face no major challenger in November’s general election, putting her on a glide path to take the reins from Mayor Muriel Bowser next year and giving Washington a change in executive leadership for the first time since Bowser took office in January 2015.
In a primary stacked with anti-Trump Democrats, Lewis George presented herself as a candidate unafraid to oppose the president. She has pledged to rescind the order allowing the city’s police to coordinate alongside federal immigration agents and take a hard legal stance against any attempts by Trump to encroach on the District’s autonomy.
Lewis George told POLITICO in an interview last week that she would “actively tell our employees to resist” if Trump again attempted to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department.
Her position is likely to pit the democratic socialist directly against a president who has attempted to tighten his grip on the district, taking extraordinary measures to crack down on crime and cut through bureaucratic red tape to pursue a slate of ambitious beautification and construction projects around the city.
When Trump was asked in the Oval Office about the possibility of Lewis George winning the primary and becoming mayor, he told reporters: “I wouldn’t like it.” “Maybe we’ll take back Washington, run it on a federal basis,” Trump said. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not gonna lose our businesses.”
A third-generation Washingtonian, the 38-year-old Lewis George has represented the district’s 4th Ward on the D.C. Council since 2021. She ran a progressive campaign, promising change from Bowser’s tenure and casting herself as a champion of the working class who would stand up to Trump. Her platform — including universal child care, social housing and public safety reforms — galvanized a coalition of voters that skewed young, white, college-educated and newer to Washington, according to polling.
McDuffie, her main opponent in the race, pitched himself as a more pro-business pragmatist who gained Bowser’s tacit support.
The change in leadership for Washington comes at a time of tumult in the city.
D.C. is facing a $1.1 billion budget gap, which Bowser has argued should be covered by cuts to social services. The Trump administration’s government funding cuts and decimation of the federal workforce hit Washington especially hard — resulting in the greatest number of job losses of any metro region in the country in 2025. And Trump’s moves to wrest control of the city by temporarily taking over the MPD and indefinitely calling on the National Guard to patrol the District’s streets were deeply unpopular among Washingtonians.
Washington is also dependent on the federal government for multiple high-profile projects that have the potential to accelerate a sluggish economy, including upgrades to Union Station and the redevelopment of the RFK Stadium campus. Lewis George told POLITICO that “there are avenues I want to work with this administration,” including those projects — but she also promised to “stand up to anyone who harms our communities or threatens home rule.”
The race between Lewis George and McDuffie — whose base skewed toward voters who are Black, older and lifelong District residents, polls showed — had grown increasingly fraught in its final weeks. Lewis George collected endorsements from several top unions, while McDuffie found support among establishment Democrats, including former Mayors Sharon Pratt and Tony Williams, and former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison.
Lewis George leaned into a campaign focused on affordability, blaming rising prices on Trump and proposing that she would bring down sky-high housing costs by constructing 72,000 new units, compared to McDuffie’s proposed 12,000. McDuffie argued that imposing greater taxes on businesses to pay for more ambitious social programs would drive them away from the district, exacerbating its economic woes.
The candidates also differed on public safety, a marquee issue in light of Trump’s crime crackdown. Lewis George, who was first elected to the Council following the social justice protests of 2020, argued for public safety reform with a holistic approach to crime prevention that includes bolstering community programs and nonpolice response.