Fundraising among the two leading Democratic candidates in D.C.’s mayoral race is close and early patterns are emerging in their support — with Janeese Lewis George getting a boost from labor unions and Kenyan R. McDuffie receiving support from business leaders, developers and Bowser administration officials, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign finance records.
The analysis also shows Lewis George, who represents Ward 4 on the D.C. Council, pulling in more money from D.C. donors, who have given her campaign about $336,000 to McDuffie’s $299,000, according to the analysis of campaign finance records through March 10.
Still, despite entering the race more than a month and a half later, McDuffie, a former council member, is nearly matching Lewis George in overall fundraising, pulling in $1.5 million to her $1.6 million, both with the help of public funds.
Another candidate, Gary Goodweather, is third in fundraising and working with about $377,000 — about $82,000 from individuals and $295,000 in matching public funds. Former council member Vincent B. Orange has around $238,000, which includes a personal loan of $175,000.
Now, with three months to go until the June 16 primary — and about two months until mail-in ballots are delivered to voters — the challenge for McDuffie and Lewis George will be translating the support of their most ardent boosters into votes from the masses of D.C. residents, who have varying degrees of familiarity with both them and their platforms.
Neither candidate is accepting large-dollar donations. Instead, both are participating in the city’s fair elections program, which puts a $200 cap on donations, prohibits business contributions and then provides candidates with a 5-to-1 match for every donation from a D.C. resident.
Lewis George, so far, is pulling more and smaller contributions; she received more than 7,100 donations averaging $57, The Post analysis shows. McDuffie is pulling fewer, but larger donations, with an average contribution of $132 across about 3,000 donations.
McDuffie appears to be encroaching on Lewis George’s territory in Ward 4, the swath of politically engaged uptown neighborhoods she represents on the council. Both candidates received the most donations from that ward, though Lewis George has still garnered about $47,000 more from the area. Meanwhile, McDuffie dominated in his home Ward 5.
Donors in Ward 1 and Ward 3 were also some of Lewis George’s top contributors, while McDuffie also received significant donations in Ward 3 and had more donations from majority-Black Wards 7 and 8, where he pulled about double the money.
Patterns in some contributions send signals about where support for each candidate lies.
Both candidates have been seeking to pitch themselves to voters as leaders who will make D.C. more affordable in the areas of housing, child care and utilities, while supporting small and local businesses. Lewis George, a democratic socialist with strong backing from labor unions and progressive groups, has been pushing back against claims she’s antibusiness and making efforts to share plans to grow the downtown economy.
McDuffie, frequently cast as the more moderate and business-friendly candidate, has taken care to emphasize his campaign’s focus on shared prosperity for the city’s working people, pushing a vision of “economic growth with guardrails.”
Still, fundraising reports filed over the past several months show the contrasts among their donors, with the business community and Bowser administration officials lining up behind McDuffie and labor union employees and members providing hundreds of donations to Lewis George. D.C. government employees, who represent a large share of the city’s workforce and residents, are heavily represented among donations to both candidates.
Bowser’s cabinet officials and high-ranking advisers are lining up behind McDuffie, while far fewer have donated to Lewis George. Among McDuffie’s donors: Bowser’s longtime chief of staff Lindsey Parker, Department of General Services Director Delano Hunter, Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement Director Kwelli Sneed and Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert.
McDuffie has also received donations from developers behind some of the most high-profile projects in the city — including top executives from EDENS, the developer behind Union Market; Hoffman & Associates, part of the joint venture that spearheaded development of the Wharf; and MRP Realty, responsible for large projects in Navy Yard, Bryant Street NE and NoMa.
Top leaders at the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Washington Partnership and Federal City Council also gave to McDuffie and not Lewis George, the reports showed. McDuffie campaign spokesperson Derrick Robinson said in an email the support from the business community “reflects confidence from the people who create jobs and invest in DC neighborhoods.”
“That is not in tension with serving working families,” Robinson said in a statement. “It is a sign that Kenyan can bring people together and govern effectively.”
Lewis George has received contributions from about 100 D.C. public schools employees, many of whom are represented by the teachers union, which has endorsed her. Meanwhile, McDuffie has around 30 D.C. public school employee contributions.
Lewis George also saw at least $18,000 in donations — which has a far greater impact when accounting for matching public funds — from people who said they were employed at labor unions.
In particular, Lewis George is seeing strong support from the city’s hospitality workers union, Unite Here Local 25, which is enmeshed in her campaign staff.
Employees at left-leaning advocacy groups who frequent the Wilson Building to lobby on budget issues — like the American Civil Liberties Union, Legal Aid DC and DC Jobs with Justice — also frequently dotted her donor list. Lewis George spokeswoman Amanda Gomez said the list of donations reflected the grassroots nature of the campaign and its “person to person” style of organizing.
The contrast between the candidates’ bases is also mirrored by a growing collection of independent expenditure committees, which are barred from coordinating directly with campaigns, as well as other outside spending groups.
Labor unions have combined forces to form Safe & Affordable DC, which is expected to spend hundreds of thousands to support Lewis George. Political fundraising arms associated with Unite Here and 32BJ SEIU, whose local chapters have endorsed Lewis George, have each poured $100,000 into the group already, and mailers targeting McDuffie are slated to begin going out in the coming week. “This is one of the most important elections in the last 20 years,” coalition chairman Joslyn Williams said in an interview. “We think she’s the only candidate who shares our passion and vision for working men and women, and it’s too important a campaign for us to just sit on the sidelines.”
Safe & Affordable DC is also forming an alliance with the environmental group Sierra Club DC PAC to go after McDuffie on the issue of soaring utility rate hikes, which they said happened “under his watch” when he was in charge of oversight of the commission that approves rate increases. McDuffie has promised voters that he will fight to lower utility bills.
Robinson defended McDuffie’s oversight of utilities as “vigorous.”
“He prevented utility shutoffs during the COVID economic crisis,” Robinson said in a statement. “And he directly questioned the [Public Service Commission] chair on camera about whether rate increases conflicted with DC climate law.”
Underscoring the battle on affordability, a nonprofit with unclear funding sources, calling itself United DC Research, put out an ad warning that Lewis George’s policy ideas would make life more expensive for working people and claiming she’d propose “billions in new taxes.”
Gomez called the claims “simply false.”
“It’s no surprise billionaires and corporations outside of DC are attacking Janeese — with her as Mayor they’ll finally be expected to pay their fair share,” she wrote in an email. “What they’re attacking is a plan to close a corporate loophole and use that revenue to make child care affordable for every DC family. Janeese proudly stands with every day DC residents, not big corporations and outside money.”
Despite the video’s focus on Lewis George, United DC Research Chair Aaron Carr said in a statement that the 501(c)(4) nonprofit is not aiming to influence the mayoral race, even though its website states that the “2026 Washington, D.C. mayoral election will be one of the most consequential in a generation” and that it aims to educate voters on the “two fundamentally different approaches to Democratic governance.”
“Our focus is policy, not politics,” Carr said, adding that the group is focused on educating residents about affordability, the city’s economy and public safety.
Carr said the group had raised “six figures” and is on track to achieve a goal of raising more than $1 million, which it will use on advertising and other public awareness campaigns. He also chairs a separate independent expenditure committee, which he said is not currently active.
The campaign reports also show a glimpse at how the front-runners are spending money.
McDuffie has spent about $250,000, largely on various consulting services, advertising, polling, mailing lists and digital fundraising — leaving him $1.2 million in cash on hand to spend, not including additional anticipated matching funds.
Lewis George has spent about $422,000 — including to a consultancy that produced $1.7 million in ads to boost New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani during his successful campaign last year, along with salaries, research and rent expenses. That left her with about $943,000 in cash as of March 10, though that number is also expected to rise with additional funds from the D.C. government.
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