D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) announced Monday she will run for mayor in 2026, making the self-described democratic socialist the first high-profile candidate to enter the race since Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) declined to seek a fourth term.
Lewis George, who has represented Ward 4 since 2021, said her campaign will focus on public safety and economic issues such as lowering the cost of housing and child care, as well as reliable public services.
“How do we make this city more affordable, safe and have a government that actually works for everyone — where you call 911 and the call gets answered, where you put in a [request] for a traffic safety improvement and you get a speed bump on your street?” she said in an interview. “It just takes leadership and courage to solve these problems, and that’s what this race is about for me.”
Lewis George’s announcement comes on the heels of fellow democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race, which was propelled by a similar focus on affordability.
It also comes as the District faces a singular challenge in defending its limited home rule in the face of attacks by President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. Lewis George has been an outspoken critic of how Bowser has handled Trump’s surge of federal law enforcement and immigration crackdown in D.C. — and said she would take a different approach.
“Our neighbors, our families [are] under attack because we are failing to stand up to defend them,” Lewis George said in her campaign announcement video underneath footage of immigration agents arresting people on D.C. streets.
In heavily Democratic D.C., the 2026 contest will mark the first time in two decades without an incumbent on the ballot after Bowser said last week that she would not seek reelection. Lewis George is the first major contender to announce, but Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (I-At-Large) said last month on WAMU that he is “seriously considering” a run.
Lewis George has at times pushed her colleagues further to the left by withholding support for large pieces of legislation until securing amendments to achieve her policy priorities. She voted for a massive crime bill last year that stiffened certain gun penalties and expanded pretrial detention, after successfully pushing back against a provision that would have lowered the amount of money required for theft to be prosecuted as a felony.
Initially skeptical of the massive $3.7 billion deal to redevelop the RFK site with a football stadium, she ended up voting for it after securing an agreement from the Washington Commanders to expand union protections for workers.
A third-generation Washingtonian, Lewis George, 37, grew up in the working-class Kennedy Street neighborhood in Northwest Washington, raised by her mother, a longtime postal worker at the Brightwood post office.
Her family was forced to move out of her childhood home when she was in law school because her mother could no longer afford the rent — so Lewis George moved into a family member’s attic and took two jobs to put herself through law school at Howard, serving tables while also working as a sales clerk at Nordstrom Rack.
“That feeling and that experience of displacement is something that I know too well,” she said. “Having to work two jobs in this city to be able to afford to stay here is a reality for so many.”
After law school, Lewis George worked as a prosecutor — first in Philadelphia, and then under the tenure of D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine.
In 2020, Lewis George unseated incumbentand Bowser ally Brandon T. Todd in Ward 4. She was elected to a second term on the council last year, surviving attacks on her public safety record by opponents who saw her as too soft on crime.
During that campaign, Lewis George walked back statements in favor of defunding the police department, saying she did not want to cut police funding and reminding voters of her background prosecuting crimes. In an interview this week, Lewis George said she would focus on evidence-based strategies to prevent crime and swiftly prosecute those who break the law, rather than longer sentences.
“We’ve focused a lot in the city on sentencing,” she said, “but what I’ve learned in law school and as a prosecutor is what deters crime is an individual knowing — am I going to get caught, and what are the chances of me being held accountable?”
Lewis George supports hiring more police in an effort to decrease the department’s use of overtime, she said, and updating the woeful state of many police department facilities to boost officer morale.
Lewis George has also advocated for greater investment to address poor housing conditions and has pushed for social housing — mixed-income housing that is publicly owned and maintained. She introduced a “Green New Deal for Housing,” a social housing concept in which rental payments of wealthier tenants could subsidize the rent of lower-income tenants in the same building, which would also be climate-friendly. That idea did not advance to a council vote.
If elected, Lewis George said that in addition to revisiting social housing, she would push to improve existing housing programs with more accountability of public funds to ensure more units are built for low-income residents.
As chair of the council’s facilities committee, Lewis George championed legislation to strengthen maintenance of public schools and reduce rodent-attracting trash overflow.
Lewis George has also clashed with the mayor and more moderate council colleagues. She was one of two lawmakers to vote against the city’s budget proposal this year, saying she could not vote for a budget that maintained such “serious holes in our social safety net for the city’s most vulnerable residents.”
Meagan Flynn contributed to this report.
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