As the smoke clears from what’s been described as an earth-shattering Democratic primary, local progressives are relishing in electoral victories that promise to shift the mayor’s office and D.C. Council the furthest left it’s been in more than a decade.
However, as Jeremiah Lowery explained, those victories were the result of protracted struggle at the ballot box and in the hearts and minds of Washingtonians skeptical of change.
“When we endorse a candidate, we’re having conversations at the doors with voters about why universal child care is important, why a sustainable transportation system throughout the whole city is important, why we need to tax the wealthy and actually invest in social services is important,” said Lowery, a lifelong Washingtonian and founder of Bike, Walk and Bus PAC.
During the 2018 D.C. Democratic primary, Lowery launched an unsuccessful electoral bid against D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large). In 2020, he and several other progressive organizers threw their support behind Ed Lazere during an independent D.C. Council at-large race that District Councilmember Christina Henderson won.
In 2022, Lowery and his comrades coalesced around Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Erin Palmer in her attempt to unseat D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson. Those efforts didn’t result in a paradigm shift, nor did Nate Bennett-Fleming’s challenge of Bonds, or At-large D.C. Councilmember Robert White’s campaign against D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
What Lowery said those efforts did was lay the foundation for a 2026 campaign season where, in the absence of a Bowser and Bonds incumbency, several progressive groups, advocacy organizations and labor unions backed candidates who spoke to residents’ frustrations with the defunding of social programs and the Bowser administration’s cooperation with the Trump administration.
“D.C. went left. It went progressive, and all of the candidates who won have commonalities [in] a lot of endorsing organizations,” Lowery told The Informer. “When you look at [Democratic at-large council nominee] Oye Owolewa, [Democratic Ward 1 nominee] Aparna Raj, [Independent at-large councilmember-elect] Elissa Silverman, [Democratic mayoral nominee] Janeese Lewis George, they were all endorsed by unions and progressive organizations here in Washington, D.C.”
That didn’t happen overnight, Lowery said.
“It’s a sign of building political power,” he told The Informer. “It’s also a sign that the people are ready for something different.”
In Lewis George and Raj Victories, Metro DC DSA Flexes Muscle Built Over a Decade
On the night of June 16, progressive darling and former D.C. council member Elissa Silverman garnered enough votes to prevent a second round of ranked-choice voting in the special independent at-large election. Meanwhile, D.C. Councilmembers Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Robert White (D-At large) commanded strong leads in the mayoral and delegate races, respectively, according to initial figures released by D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE).
Within hours, White’s principal opponent D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) conceded, and former D.C. council member and mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie followed suit two days later. During a press conference at Busboys and Poets on 14th Street NW, Lewis George addressed the controversy around her democratic socialist identity, telling reporters that voters resonated more with her attention to the issues.
“People need to understand that everybody is consistent, that they want leaders to address the affordability crisis, no matter what city you live in in this country,” Lewis George said on the afternoon of June 18. “Democrat or Republican, everyone has an interest in their family having affordable child care and having affordable health care and living in safe communities and neighborhoods. These aren’t just… values attributed to one party or one ideology.”
For nearly a decade, Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has channeled its energy into candidates and campaigns espousing support of working-class D.C. residents.
In 2018, Metro DC DSA-backed candidate Emily Gasoi won the Ward 1 D.C. State Board of Education seat. Two years later, in her first electoral bid during the pandemic, Lewis George defeated then-Ward 4 D.C. Councilmember Brandon Todd with Metro DC DSA’s support. In 2022, Metro DC DSA organized for Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D) and the approval of Initiative 82 to increase the tipped minimum wage.
During the 2026 election cycle, the local DSA chapter directed resources toward Lewis George’s mayoral bid and Raj’s campaign for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. By the end of Juneteenth/Father’s Day weekend, Metro DSA’s impact would be further confirmed, not only with Lewis George’s victory, but that of Raj.
“It was a resounding rejection of status-quo politics and an affirmation for a progressive vision for D.C. that fights for renters, workers, and immigrants,” Raj told The Informer. “People are tired of seeing… politicians who favor corporate interests or who cower to Trump and want our elected leaders to govern for people and be willing to push back against Trump, against the ultra wealthy and against corporations to make sure every single person has a dignified life in D.C.”
Between June 16 and June 21, Raj clinched nearly 52% of the vote after weathering four rounds of ranked-choice voting to defeat advisory neighborhood commissioners Rashida Brown and Miguel Trindade Deramo, along with Jackie Reyes Yanes and Terry Lynch.
From the moment she jumped into the race, Raj, and the hundreds of Metro DSA members working on her behalf, visited homes, attended events, and showed up in the community. She said it was all in support of a vision that aligns with their values and lived experiences.
“One of the reasons why DSA has been able to organize and engage a ton of volunteers and why we on the campaign were able to bring out 400 different volunteers,” Raj said, “is because when people really believe in something and they feel like their ability to live in D.C. is dependent on that, then they’re motivated and engaged to canvass… It speaks a lot to the organizing power, but the organizing power and the values and the message are all one and the same.”
Raj said she has since spoken with her opponents and D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), who endorsed Brown. As the budget season wraps up, Raj is also organizing around the council’s passage of a wealth proceeds tax and business activity tax.
She calls her work online and in the streets a hint of what constituents can expect of her on the dais.
“I really see my role as an organizer in office and I mean that both in terms of trying to build relationships across the council and within our new mayor’s office to advance policy and advance a budget that really centers working people,” Raj told The Informer, “but I also see being an organizer in an office as bringing people who have felt left behind in our political process and making government more transparent, more accountable, and helping bring people into the political process itself.”
For more than a decade, Raj has organized around the improvement of tenants’ living conditions, and on behalf of workers seeking pay increases and benefits. Last year, as federal government employees, immigrants and everyone else in between suffered under the shadow of the Trump administration, Raj and other organizers also had an enemy in Bowser who, in her budget proposal, attempted to repeal Initiative 82 and weaken the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act.
That budget battle, Raj said, laid the groundwork for one of the progressive movement’s most electrifying campaign seasons in recent history.
“It really politically activated a lot of tenants and a lot of workers,” Raj said. “It also created legislative fights in the Wilson Building where people saw that some council members were willing to take away the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, were willing to repeal Initiative 82, and it really politically energized a lot of already organized folks across the ward and across D.C. to get more electorally involved and to try to fight for council members who would better represent them.”
Dr. Owolewa Comes Out on Top With Long Established Rapport
Per DCBOE, Owolewa, who currently serves as the District’s shadow U.S. representative, came out on top with nearly 51% of the vote. He survived eight rounds of ranked-choice voting, defeating two former Bonds staffers and two opponents backed by independent expenditure committees responsible for the negative campaign ads targeted at Owolewa.
“It’s a new day, and whether it’s from previous administrations or even the Trump factor in D.C., people are looking for something different,” Owolewa, a pharmacist and Ward 8 resident, told The Informer. “Here I am as a son of African immigrant parents, someone who’s a health care worker, someone who lives in Ward 8, being able to make history and get the Democratic nomination and get that much closer to being an at-large council member.”
Owolewa launched his campaign bid last September, weeks before Bonds, an opponent of ranked-choice voting, announced she wouldn’t run for re-election. He created a campaign around issues he championed as shadow representative and former advisory neighborhood commissioner— including the expungement of returning citizens’ records and support for small businesses and nonprofits.
Even while running, Owolewa kept his eyes on developments in his backyard. He organized against the construction of a Department of Homeland Security facility on St. Elizabeths West Campus in Congress Heights, telling The Informer that it was a matter of helping D.C. residents under siege.
“Rather than focusing on the difference that I have than the average or typical D.C. voter, we talked about having that progressive change in D.C.,” Owolewa said, “someone who fights for more investment, someone who’s going to pipeline young people into college, not into prison. Having Ward 8 conversations in Ward 3, having Ward 4 conversations in Ward 6, having Ward 2 conversations in Ward 7 and vice versa.”
Owolewa said that, since winning the Democratic nomination for the at-large D.C. Council seat, he has spoken with White and Nadeau. He also recounted receiving congratulatory texts from D.C. Councilmembers Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) and Trayon White (D-Ward 8).
With a general election victory likely in a Democratic city, Owolewa said he’s preparing for his new job with the support of what he described as the “51 for Oye leadership governance team.”
“I don’t want to have training wheels in January,” Owolewa said. “I want to be able to have an agenda. I want to be able to have a transition. I’m excited to get the ball rolling, but I’m also working right now to start learning, start picking things up and start getting myself prepared for a very busy 2027.”
Owolewa, the council’s first-ever at-large council member from east of the Anacostia River since Kwame Brown, and one of three who will represent that region on the legislative body, stood on a platform that included tuition-free matriculation to University of District of Columbia and expansion of DC-TAG.
He also said he’s deadset on holistically reducing disparities reverberating across the District.
“My neighbors and I in Ward 8 are going to live 27 years less than our friends in Georgetown, even though we’re just eight miles away,” Owolewa said. “A lot of those disparities come from negligent leadership [and] policy violence. Hopefully I can help reduce that disparity, not just in healthcare, not just in life expectancy, but also in reading achievement.”
Some D.C. Residents Give Their Take
Throughout much of the campaign season, McDuffie and his supporters alluded to “outside interests” that could take over the District in the event of a Lewis George victory. A strong contingent of supporters took on what some have described as a nativist tone.
Though Lowery, a D.C. native who was born and raised in Ward 8, acknowledged the fear among native Washingtonians, he said that the Lewis George campaign touched every community.
“There’s always constant work that needs to be done as organizations…to be more race conscious, to extend more olive branches, to do more collaboration, and to talk to folks who normally don’t have a seat at the table,” Lowery told The Informer, “but one thing Janeese showed is …her message didn’t change citywide. In her victory speech, she said that we need to make streets safe for everybody. She never stopped talking about that at meet-and-greets and campaign forums.”
Earlier this year, Ward 1 resident and Metro DC DSA member Rami Jackson told The Informer that Raj has collected enough intimate experiences through her tenant and worker organizing to represent a wide swath of Washingtonians, including those whose families were the first to experience the pain of displacement.
“People who lived here, whose families have been here for generations, are being pushed out,” Jackson told The Informer. “D.C. is losing a lot of its local color, a lot of its culture, and if we want to maintain this vibrant city that just brings so many people from around the world together, but also has that natural base of those born and raised in D.C., we need those politics.”
Jackson said that Raj’s presence on the council can make democratic socialism real to people who, despite their subjugation under the status quo, are often susceptible to propaganda that turns them away from a paradigm shift of their benefit.
‘It’s politics that’s really about getting working people to where they need to be,” Jackson said. “It’s an ideology that believes that government can do more for people and that we don’t have to run away from government, which I think is a radical change from this neoliberal idea that we’ve had in this country for decades, that government is something to either be feared or it’s just completely incompetent.”
Ward 8 resident and supervoter Jaren Hill Lockridge told The Informer that, despite the strong potential for structural change with White, Lewis George, Silverman, Raj, and Owolewa, she’s still maintaining a cautious disposition because of what she saw, or didn’t see, over the past six months.
“I’m disappointed with the lack of intentional outreach,” said Lockridge, whose organizational affiliations include the nonprofit Dreaming Out Loud and the Ward 8 Health Council. “There were uphill battles, but I did not feel like a priority….I know the candidates have committed to touching all eight wards. I look forward to holding them accountable.”
In her role as Dreaming Out Loud’s director of strategic communications and chair of Ward 8 Health Council, Hill Lockridge aims to address inequitable food access, an issue that has plagued her community for decades.
Part of that effort includes the launch of Marion Barry Avenue Market & Cafe, a spot that’s stocked with local produce for Ward 8 residents. Hill Lockridge told The Informer that, in the absence of proximate grocery stores, she and her colleagues have explored alternatives through which they are tapping into ancestral traditions.
“I’m not putting the blame on any individual or community,” Hill Lockridge said, “but trying to do something different with the system. If we can feed ourselves, we are a liberated people.”
Weeks ago, Hill Lockridge also counted among those who advocated for the preservation of D.C. Food Policy Council, an agency that, due to Henderson’s efforts, will continue its work under D.C. Health instead of D.C. Office of Planning. On June 16, shortly after the council’s first vote on the Fiscal Year 2027 budget, Hill Lockridge saw White and, as she recounted, spoke with him about food policy, even giving him an open invitation to the Marion Barry Avenue & Cafe.
With White now the Democratic nominee for D.C. delegate, Hill Lockridge said she’s looking forward to what he can do in collaboration with his local counterparts to make Ward 8 a healthier place to live and work.
“Being in the District, we have a unique opportunity to work with the federal and District government,” Hill Lockridge told The Informer. “We can work with Robert and Janeese to do some innovative things and lean into this purple wave.”
She expressed similar sentiments about the other victors.
“I’m looking forward to working with all our democratic nominees,” Hill Lockridge said. “It’s less political. It’s more about applying common sense. All of them have a common-sense approach.”
