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\n

Janeese Lewis George is on track to become the next mayor of Washington, D.C., after Kenyan McDuffie conceded the Democratic primary on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Lewis George\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press had not yet called the race at the time of McDuffie\u2019s concession, but Lewis George has tracked ahead of McDuffie since vote-counting began on Tuesday in all but one of the city\u2019s wards. In a statement, McDuffie said he had called Lewis George \u201cto congratulate her on her victory and wish her success as she prepares for the general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis George would face no major challenger in November\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s police to coordinate alongside federal immigration agents and take a hard legal stance against any attempts by Trump to encroach on the District\u2019s autonomy.<\/p>\n

Lewis George told Blue Light News in an interview last week that she would \u201cactively tell our employees to resist\u201d if Trump again attempted to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

When Trump was asked in the Oval Office about the possibility of Lewis George winning the primary and becoming mayor, he told reporters: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t like it.\u201d \u201cMaybe we\u2019ll take back Washington, run it on a federal basis,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe won\u2019t put up with it. We\u2019re not gonna lose our businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third-generation Washingtonian, the 38-year-old Lewis George has represented the district\u2019s 4th Ward on the D.C. Council since 2021. She ran a progressive campaign, promising change from Bowser\u2019s tenure and casting herself as a champion of the working class who would stand up to Trump. Her platform \u2014 including universal child care, social housing and public safety reforms \u2014 galvanized a coalition of voters that skewed young, white, college-educated and newer to Washington, according to polling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McDuffie, her main opponent in the race, pitched himself as a more pro-business pragmatist who gained Bowser\u2019s tacit support<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The change in leadership for Washington comes at a time of tumult in the city.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s government funding cuts and decimation of the federal workforce hit Washington especially hard \u2014 resulting in the greatest number of job losses<\/a> of any metro region in the country in 2025. And Trump\u2019s moves to wrest control of the city by temporarily taking over the MPD and indefinitely calling on the National Guard to patrol the District\u2019s streets were deeply unpopular<\/a> among Washingtonians.<\/p>\n

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 Blue Light News that \u201cthere are avenues I want to work with this administration,\u201d including those projects \u2014 but she also promised to \u201cstand up to anyone who harms our communities or threatens home rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The race between Lewis George and McDuffie \u2014 whose base skewed toward voters who are Black, older and lifelong District residents, polls showed \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The candidates also differed on public safety, a marquee issue in light of Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}