In their first major television ad buys, the top two D.C. mayoral candidates sound notes so similar they could have swapped scripts, at least in some parts.
“I’m running for mayor because every child deserves to be safe from crime. Every family deserves to be able to afford to live here,” former D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie says in his ad, a seven-figure buy that went up last weekend.
“I’m running for mayor to make our city safer and more affordable,” council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) says in her ad that launched in late April, in which she promises to bring down the costs of housing and child care and stand up to President Donald Trump.
But with little daylight between the candidates’ ads, deep-pocketed political groups are seeking to drive a wedge, launching attacks to seize on the potential vulnerabilities of their opponents and put them on the defensive in the home stretch before the June 16 primary.
A pro-business group backing McDuffie is hammering Lewis George with attacks on public safety. Meanwhile, a coalition of unions is going after McDuffie, blaming him for rising utility costs, which have soared for complex reasons. The two groups — Opportunity DC and Safe & Affordable DC, respectively — are among the top ad spenders in the mayoral primary, having each dropped roughly $300,000 so far, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign ad spending.
The crystallizing attacks could turn the last leg of the race into a battle for control of the political narrative between Lewis George, a democratic socialist powered by major labor union backing and progressive organizations, and McDuffie, the former chairman of the council’s business committee who is widely seen as more moderate but is also making working-family appeals on affordability.
“If the candidates do not respond to these negative ads, they run the risk of being Swift-boated,” said Bill Lightfoot, a strategist who chaired campaigns for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who is not seeking reelection.
Public safety vote in spotlight
While their TV ads are similar, a new mailer from McDuffie targeting Lewis George on crime suggests he’s trying to carve out more of a lane on public safety — and “feeling the pinch” of the TV ads that have attacked his integrity, Lightfoot said.
“Janeese Lewis George repeatedly voted against cracking down on crime in DC,” the McDuffie mailer asserts.
It cites, in part, a 2023 emergency public safety bill. Lewis George objected to temporarily expanding pretrial detention for adults and juveniles accused of certain violent crimes. At the time, Lewis George argued that detaining more people before trial would not prevent crime, pointing to data showing low recidivism rates for those out on pretrial release.
McDuffie — who like Lewis George is a former prosecutor — has expressed skepticism about that idea as well and, in general, has led changes to the juvenile justice system that aimed to reduce incarceration, an area where they have been aligned. But McDuffie ultimately supported the broader 2023 public safety bill, passed during a crime spike. Lewis George was the only council member who did not.
“What he’s struggled with is defining the contrast between him and Janeese, and on this issue, on public safety, they really are similar in philosophy about juvenile detention — but yet they have acted differently,” Lightfoot said. “That’s why he’s highlighting it.”
Opportunity DC, whose top funders include major developers, and A United DC Research Council, a dark-money group, have put out mailers and ads attacking Lewis George over the 2023 vote as well. On Wednesday, Opportunity DC placed another six-figure buy going after Lewis George on the issue, attacking her for voting no on the broader bill, which also included provisions enhancing gun penalties and making strangulation a felony.
“Since joining the council, Janeese Lewis George has consistently taken positions out of step with most Washingtonians,” said Malcom Fox, Opportunity DC’s executive director.
Lewis George ultimately voted yes on the permanent Secure D.C. omnibus public safety package in 2024 that included those provisions. Her vote came after she supported an amendment from McDuffie requiring the city to study the effectiveness of the pretrial detention provision before extending it.
“As a former prosecutor, Janeese Lewis George knows what it takes to enforce the law, and keep DC safe. These ads are repeating Republican talking points,” Lewis George’s communications director, Amanda Gomez, said in a statement, while highlighting that some of McDuffie’s donors have also donated to President Donald Trump’s campaigns. Those donors represent about two dozen out of several thousand, the 51st reported.
Matthew Dallek, a politics professor at George Washington University, said the extent to which Lewis George is vulnerable to the attacks could depend on how top-of-mind public safety is for voters — who tend to have a “long memory” on crime spikes. Overall crime and homicides have been substantially down in D.C., but a recent uptick in shootings has raised concerns.
“Crime is a powerful issue in urban politics,” Dallek said. And while it “does not seem to be, at least right now, the No. 1 issue defining the race by any stretch, that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.”
Union-funded group attacks McDuffie
“Affordability,” Dallek said, has largely claimed the top spot as the issue most energizing voters both in D.C. and nationally.
Safe & Affordable DC, which is funded by national political arms of various labor unions, is trying to seize on voters’ concerns about skyrocketing utility bills to go after McDuffie, who had oversight of utility issues on the council, and cast aspersions about his connections to lobbyists.
“Out of control electric bills: That is the real Kenyan R. McDuffie,” asserts an ad from the coalition, which seeks to paint McDuffie as too cozy with utilities lobbyists who have donated to his campaigns or worked in his office, and whom he met with on more occasions than his colleagues.
“We need a mayor who will fight for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected,” Jos Williams, chair of Safe & Affordable and former president of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
In an interview, McDuffie forcefully pushed back on any suggestion of improper relationships with the utility companies or lobbyists, calling it “dirty politics at its worst.”
“The suggestion that there’s anything other than me doing my job and meeting with stakeholders, asking tough questions and fighting for D.C. residents — anything other than that — is an attempt to distract voters from what matters most: who is best qualified to fight Trump, protect home rule and deliver a city that is safer, more affordable and accountable to the residents across all eight wards of Washington, D.C.,” he said.
He also rejected the corruption allegations hovering in another Safe & Affordable ad, which accuses him of voting to “block an ethics law” while also resurfacing a 2019 Washington Post report that McDuffie voted for a multimillion-dollar sports-betting contract that listed his cousin as one of the subcontractors.
McDuffie has maintained he did not know his cousin was listed in documents before the vote. The subcontracting company, Potomac Supply Co., said at the time that McDuffie’s cousin was listed in error and didn’t have a stake in the company. The ethics law the ad says McDuffie voted to block was a budget amendment requiring the public housing authority to seek council approval for contracts over $250,000. The five members who voted no, including McDuffie, argued that threshold was hampering speedy public housing repairs.
McDuffie said that in contrast to the ad’s “smears” he has led on ethics reform. His first major pieces of legislation to pass the council after his election in 2012 included tightening ethics standards for public employees and restricting campaign donations from businesses, closing what’s known as the “LLC loophole.”
Lewis George, meanwhile, has faced scrutiny over her ties to unions. A campaign finance complaint questions whether her campaign has improperly coordinated with Safe & Affordable DC. It also notes that several members of Unite Here Local 25 — among the unions whose national political arms funds the coalition — work in senior roles in Lewis George’s campaign, which reimburses the union for their salaries.
Her campaign has dismissed the allegations of improper coordination as baseless. An investigation is underway.
According to the latest May campaign finance reports, Lewis George has retained an edge in overall fundraising, pulling in over $2.7 million when combined with public matching funds, and in receiving contributions from more D.C. residents. McDuffie has pulled in $2.1 million, though he has almost $300,000 more on hand heading into the last month.
Of the seven Democratic mayoral candidates to qualify for the ballot, Gary Goodweather, a real estate investor, is the only other with enough money to get an ad buy on television.
The ad, released Monday, begins with a familiar message: “I’m running for mayor to make D.C. affordable and reduce crime in every neighborhood.”
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