As D.C.’s most consequential election in years — the race for the open mayoral seat — kicks into higher gear, its top two candidates are revealing two very distinct flavors of campaigning.
Former council member Kenyan R. McDuffie, who entered the race in January, just last week released a campaign platform through a news release — nearly two months after his top opponent for the Democratic nomination, council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), drew hundreds of supporters at a party at Howard Theatre to announce hers.
On Friday night, her campaign threw a “fund-rave-er” at a dance club on H Street, recruiting a small army of young volunteers. McDuffie, meanwhile, has been doing more intimate events such as meet-and-greets at schools and private homes. He was at one such commitment on Thursday when he skipped a candidates’ forum on education, among several forums he has been conspicuously absent from in recent weeks.
“I want to note that I am here, but one of my opponents is not here,” Lewis George said in a dig at McDuffie at the forum. “You should note who shows up.”
The race for the open mayoral seat in the nation’s capital — unusually sleepy to start, as Lewis George spent over a month as the only prominent candidate — could bring major change to city politics at a challenging time for D.C.’s economy and relationship with the federal government.
Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist popular in progressive circles, and McDuffie, widely seen as the more moderate candidate, remain the leading contenders. But with the June Democratic primary three months away, political observers say it’s clear McDuffie — who only recently got his top campaign staff settled — has some ground to make up as he tries to build a comparable network of energetic supporters and volunteers that Lewis George visibly established early.
It’s too early to tell whether the lags may ultimately hurt McDuffie. Like Lewis George, he had early fundraising momentum, and both are neck-and-neck with over $1 million in the bank thanks to the public campaign financing system. Plus, with a 13-year record on the D.C. Council — more than twice the length of Lewis George’s — and experience in a citywide election, he retains a name-recognition edge.
But that edge hasn’t been quite as sharp given Lewis George’s early jump; she launched Dec. 1.
“He’s talking to people, but hasn’t built an organization yet,” said Bill Lightfoot, a former D.C. Council member who chaired all three of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s campaigns. “When you’re running citywide you’ve got to reach all the likely voters. I think he’s a little bit behind Janeese in organization — but it’s not fatal.”
Asked last week what his campaign strategy has been and why he has been missing forums, McDuffie said he has “been in neighborhoods in every single ward across the city working to earn [residents’] votes. There are many more forums, and I plan to attend some as we get closer to the primary.”
Shelli Jackson, his campaign manager, argued that with the mix of community events McDuffie has regularly attended, he “has in fact been the most visible candidate with voters in person by a mile.”
“Kenyan’s approach to this campaign reflects how he has always done the work,” she said in a statement. “He has always shown up in communities, listened to residents, and earned support through substance and direct facetime.”
Lewis George, who has served on the council since 2021, unveiled the main pillars of her policy platform in mid-January. Among other things, she pledged a universal child care subsidy for all D.C. families, an end to coordination between D.C. police and federal immigration authorities and a new approach to creating affordable housing through a social housing model — publicly owned and subsidized mixed-income housing.
“Her universal child care legislation we think is a critical element for defending working families in the city,” said Vidal Hines, senior political director of the Working Families Party, which is backing Lewis George and similarly boosted New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) in his campaign last year, which also included a universal child care pledge. “Janeese is very prepared to push that. She’s been a strong advocate of that as a member of city council.”
Lewis George’s campaign also said she plans to roll out an economic development vision imminently. The plan, first reported by Axios, calls for a new downtown development corporation that could remake empty federal buildings into useful revenue generators and a dramatic makeover of Union Station and the surrounding area into a potential new neighborhood.
“The business community is by and large supporting Kenyan, but Janeese is making a thoughtful effort to put her economic vision out there,” said Gregory McCarthy, a senior vice president for the Washington Nationals and member of the business advocacy group the Federal City Council, while stressing he was uncommitted to either candidate.
“The challenge for her is to convey fiscal prudence,” he said, given some of her proposals, such as universal child care, could come with hefty costs at a tough financial time for the city.
The eight-page platform released by McDuffie, a former chair of the council’s business committee, similarly focused on affordability issues and lifting small businesses, including lowering the costs of utilities and child care, and expanding affordable housing — but with more modest proposals that he framed as more achievable.
On child care, for example, he said he will provide tax incentives to employers to expand benefits for working parents, fund a local child tax credit that passed the D.C. Council last year and increase supply of child care providers through zoning changes and providing District-owned space in underserved neighborhoods, among other ideas. Like Lewis George, he also pledged to end cooperation between D.C. police and federal immigration authorities “on Day 1.”
Ron Moten, a longtime D.C. activist who currently runs the Go-Go Museum & Cafe in Anacostia, said he was drawn toward McDuffie’s style and record on the council, which he sees as focused on equity for Black Washingtonians while growing the city’s economy. Lewis George, he argued, is pushing policies he sees as “experimental” without a lengthy council track record to back them up.
Moten acknowledged that McDuffie has been less visible than Lewis George, saying “he had to get organized.” But he said that in many ways, including his longer record on the council, McDuffie was ahead of his opponent.
“He has policies that have made D.C. better,” said Moten, pointing to grants for small businesses, criminal justice reform and the creation of D.C.’s violence intervention programs. “So he’s already rolled out policies. She needs to catch up.”
Charles Wilson, chairman of the D.C. Democratic Party, said the two former council colleagues may have more similarities than some may realize on first glance. Both are native Washingtonians with working-class upbringings. Both have law degrees and have worked as prosecutors, both with an eye to civil rights and social justice issues — McDuffie in the civil rights division at the Justice Department, where he investigated police departments accused of wrongdoing; Lewis George in the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, where she worked on juvenile justice reform.
But in their time on the D.C. Council, each built a record that has attracted very different political constituencies and bases of support, coalitions that are emerging now in the mayoral campaign.
“I think the difference is the people who are going to be around them — what do they believe and what do they represent?” Wilson said.
Lewis George rocketed out of the gate with strong backing from labor unions, coming with a built-in volunteer and donor network. A coalition of unions named Safe & Affordable DC has formed an independent expenditure committee and is ready to pour money into boosting her campaign.
“We’re with her because she’s the only candidate in this race who will fearlessly and consistently stand up against the bullies for all of D.C.,” Joslyn Williams, the coalition’s chair and the former head of the Metropolitan Council of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “In contrast, D.C.’s labor unions have watched Kenyan R. McDuffie — despite his rhetoric on affordability — vote time and again to make D.C. more expensive for workers and our families.”
McDuffie’s team has touted endorsements from two former D.C. politicians — former mayor Sharon Pratt, who served one term from 1991 to 1995, and former council member Mary M. Cheh, who represented Ward 3 from 2007 to 2023. Cheh said Friday that McDuffie has a proven record, pointing to examples such as his baby bonds legislation, while Lewis George’s was “essentially barren.”
D.C. political strategist China Dickerson, who has managed and advised council campaigns in the city, said Lewis George’s robust slate of labor endorsements will likely prove the most valuable in a race where success depends on the number of voters you can get to the polls.
This weekend, the Lewis George campaign is aiming to knock on 5,000 doors with the help of dozens of workers from several local unions — adding to the estimated 10,000 homes the campaign has already stopped by. McDuffie’s campaign estimated he has personally interacted with nearly 10,000 voters through a variety of means, including canvassing and civic meetings.
“I think for both of them, it’s really going to come to getting out the vote,” Dickerson said. “I think their voters are the people that they can reach out to, that they can touch.”
Other candidates, including Gary Goodweather and former council member Vincent B. Orange, are vying in the race as well. The D.C. primary is June 16. The D.C. Board of Elections’ tentative date for beginning to mail ballots to registered voters is May 11.
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