With some of the first-round tabulations for ranked-choice voting complete, D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) is emerging as the interim winner of a highly contentious mayoral Democratic primary.
Tuesday night’s results from D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) showed Lewis George, a democratic socialist who caught the ire of the city’s moderate Democrats and President Donald Trump, securing nearly 53% of the vote, just above the threshold of what’s needed to declare victory.
“Let it now be laid to rest. It is the people of D.C. who elect the mayor,” Lewis George, flanked by her husband and an army of supporters, said while behind a podium on the stage at Howard Theatre. “Tonight, D.C. made its demand. What seemed like a distant dream not too long ago is already history unfolding before our eyes. This moment is for those who refuse to surrender their hope in a government that works for all of us.”
Lewis George launched her campaign in the very same spot at Howard Theatre back in January. Weeks later, after the submission of nominating petitions, the field of candidates included her, former D.C council members Kenyan McDuffie and Vincent Orange, Gary Goodweather, Rini Simpath, Ernest Johnson, and Hope Solomon, all of whom she defeated by double digit percentages.
As the Ward 4 council member’s “purple wave” of campaign operatives and volunteers made their way across the District this year, McDuffie warned, in but so many words, of blowback from the Trump administration under a Lewis George mayoralty. During the latter part of that last week, that omen, in part, came to fruition when President Donald J. Trump told reporters that he would relinquish the District of Home Rule in the event of Lewis George’s victory.
On Tuesday, Lewis George said the president’s comments gave her campaign an extra boost.
“That actually got more people to the polls,” she told The Informer. “It made some indecisive voters decisive…We knew the road ahead was going to be tough, but [with] him having his eyes on us, [it] became very clear.”
Lewis George recently faced another hurdle when D.C. Office of Campaign Finance (OCF) issued a $16,000 fine and revealed the findings of an investigation confirming collusion between her campaign, unions, and PACs. D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), a Lewis George supporter, has since called on the D.C. Office of the Inspector General to investigate OCF.
Lewis George’s campaign has also appealed OCF’s ruling, calling it a tactic similar to what was employed against then-D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman in her 2022 loss to McDuffie.
“I think people really saw that and were like, ‘Wait a minute now. Like one time is OK, but another time it just seems like a pattern,’” Lewis George said. “When I’m talking to voters, they’re just talking to me about affordability and Trump. The people who did come up to me [said], ‘This is suspect. This pissed me off and we don’t like it.”
On the afternoon of Election Day, Lewis George arrived at Turkey Thicket Recreation Center in Northeast, one of the stops she made throughout the city. She walked through the pathway of campaign posters and tables, and even danced as supporters sang a remix of Young Miami’s “Spend Dat” as their final appeal for voters’ support.
Later, in an interview with The Informer, Lewis George expressed her gratitude to all voters, including those who didn’t support her mayoral ambitions.
“I’m looking forward to us leveraging our power and coordinating that power to benefit D.C. residents and just really making this city more affordable for everyone,” Lewis George said. “Standing up to Trump right now, I think it’s just going to go a long way.”
Lewis George also touted ranked-choice voting as the ideal mechanism in fostering alignment among opposing candidates. Months into a contentious mayoral race however, she admitted that she and McDuffie couldn’t find common ground.
“There was a lot of negativity, a lot of fear mongering that occurred,” Lewis George said. “I wish that there could have been more of an effort to say, ‘Hey, all of us are good people. We love this city. Rank whoever you think would be the best to serve right now.’ Missed opportunity for sure.”
A Word with Former D.C. Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie and Vincent Orange
Amid the weeks of back and forth between Lewis George and McDuffie, at least one person— former D.C. Councilmember Vincent Orange — questioned the degree to which any of the oft-called frontrunners focused on the actual issues.
“What the mainstream media showed us is two candidates arguing against each other back and forth from day one all the way to the end,” Orange told The Informer. “That’s not a good look for us. It’s not a good look for us locally, and it’s not a good look for us nationally.”
Orange entered the race touting a bevy of past accomplishments, including helping the District escape the clutches of the Control Board, and securing investments into Turkey Thicket Recreation Center, McKinley Technology High School, and a shopping center near Rhode Island Avenue Metro Station.
While Lewis George and McDuffie have pledged to fight Trump, Orange often evoked the words of the late President John F. Kennedy, telling voters across the District, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
“The man [President Trump] said he’s going to spend $10 billion in D.C. I would like to have a seat at that table,” Orange said. “Let’s get some of those dollars for paid apprenticeships for our teens. Let’s get some of those dollars to help us get our police force back up to 4,500. As mayor, I’m aggressively fighting to get the National Guard under my control. I’m not going to be bashful in what I desire.”
Hours before Lewis George’s appearance at Turkey Thicket, McDuffie joined his wife Princess and their two daughters at the voting center. Even with recent polling showing Lewis George in the lead, McDuffie told The Informer that he had something to offer District residents.
“My appeal has been a vision that people can get behind that really prioritizes their safety and…making this city the most affordable city in America, but also ensuring that they understand on day one, I’ll be prepared to lead,” McDuffie told The Informer. “I’ll be prepared to manage a $21 billion government in a way that delivers core services much more efficiently. I’m not going to default to raising people’s taxes. This isn’t just about making promises and empty rhetoric.”
Throughout the race, McDuffie drew contrasts between himself and Lewis George, who he called the less experienced candidate. He also relied on his more than 13 years on the council and the backing of former Ward 3 D.C. council member Mary Cheh, former D.C. mayors Anthony Williams and Sharon Pratt, among several other elder politicians.
“We let them know that we’re going to put policies in place that creates and builds the housing that we need in the District of Columbia across incomes.” McDuffie said about his voter outreach. “All the way down to the lowest income residents who need quality, safe, affordable housing, as well as middle income residents like our teachers, our firefighters, our police officers, our 9-1-1 operators, our child care workers.”
Robert White Clinches Victory in D.C. Delegate Race
The interim results of other June 16 primary races allude to what many have called a generational and ideological shift in local politics during a period of flagrant federal intrusion and increasing economic insecurity.
In the delegate race for instance, D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) conceded to D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large) after White clinched 63.16% of the vote, compared to her 21%.
White, a former Norton staffer, credited the ‘Warrior on the Hill’ in his victory against Pinto, longtime Democratic operative Kinney Zalesne, Norton staffer Trent Holbrook, and physicist Greg Jaczko.
“Because of the work that Congresswoman Norton has done, the right person following her can build on that legacy,” White told The Informer earlier in the day. “I can do things that she couldn’t do because of the things she did, but you need somebody who knows this city and who knows this seat very well.”
For the better part of the election, White and Pinto had repeatedly criticized each other. The delegate race took a turn for the worse in April when Pinto released a dossier that included information about White’s family and a rendering of his family home.
Pinto, who has since apologized for the dossier, was the target of an activist-led campaign intended to discourage voters from ranking her. On Tuesday evening, as the primary election season came to a close, Pinto reflected on the impact of ranked-choice voting.
“In my own race, that has created an opportunity for some of the other candidates to understand not just our differences, but our similarities,” Pinto said. “We love the city and we’re fighting to protect the city, and I think that’s allowed for, in debates and forums and in other communications with voters, for people to rank their choices and not just have to pick one or the other.”
As Pinto recounted, she’s been focused on connecting with voters, and promoting her Breaking Ground DC plan, through which she aimed to: make rent federally tax deductible; secure selection of zoning commission members by the D.C. government; pave the way for higher density housing construction near transit; provide sufficient middle-income housing for seniors; and increase federal support for the D.C. Housing Authority.
“Eleanor Holmes Norton has done an amazing job from supporting women’s rights and civil rights and racial justice,” to having D.C. statehood pass through the House twice, to helping send tens of thousands of D.C. students to college,” Pinto said. “Because it has been her for so long, there were a lot of voters who were really unfamiliar with a competitive race in this seat. This has really been an opportunity to talk to a lot of voters about what this seat not only has done, but what it can do in the future.”
Zalesne— whose experience includes a stint as counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration, the launch of a college access nonprofit in Adams Morgan, leadership of strategy development at Microsoft, and co-chairmanship of Women for Kamala Harris— said that she, not White or Pinto, had experience necessary to represent the District on the Hill.
“I think my opponents want voters to think that Congress is just some kind of varsity city council, and I don’t think that’s right,” Zalesne told The Informer. “The delegate job is its own singular and unusual opportunity for D.C. … The job requires somebody with deep relationships across Capitol Hill in order to protect our autonomy and deep relationships across the rest of the country in order to advance our economy.”
Zalesne jumped into the race last year, well before Norton announced she wouldn’t run for reelection. She spent the last few months promoting a platform that includes: the creation of a Capital Caucus in Congress to foster regional economic growth in collaboration with Maryland and Virginia, securing funding for best practices in reducing gun violence; and striking a “grand bargain” in Congress to achieve statehood.
Zalesne hoped to bring a level of creativity to the job that blends various parts of her professional experience.
“The government is not going to solve our problems. The private sector is not going to solve our problems. The nonprofit sector is not going to solve our problems, but there is potential for creative solutions that lie at the intersection of all three,” Zalesne told The Informer. “Voters should demand that of their leaders. They should demand experience and success in all three sectors, because you’re going to have to not only have relationships across all of them, but you’re going to need the vocabulary of all of them.”
White said, through it all, he remained focused on the issues at hand. With the race behind him, White expressed a desire to help bring local Democrats back together.
“We do not have the luxury right now of being divided,” White told The Informer. “We need a delegate, a mayor, a chair and an attorney general who can work through difficult issues behind closed doors, but show a unified front, because that is what is required, especially over these next two years.”
The Other Democratic Primary Races: An Informer Recap
On Election Night, DCBOE reported only first-choice results well after the last voters in line at voting centers across the District cast their ballot. D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D) and Ward 3 D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin (D) won their reelection bids unopposed.
D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb garnered more than 90% of the vote against his opponent, J.P. Szymkowicz, while Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker, in the first-round votes that have been tabulated by Tuesday night, secured 76.37% of the vote in his reelection bid, compared to challengers’ Bernita Carmichael’s 15.28% and Bridget K. French’s 7.57%.
D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) is dominating so far in his reelection bid with 74.43% of the interim vote compared to Gloria Ann Nauden’s 18.68% and Michael Murphy’s 6.51%.
In Ward 1, Aparna Raj, one of five people fighting to succeed D.C. Council Brianne Nadeau, secured 46.7%— just below the threshold of what’s needed to declare an interim first-round victory. With nearly 34% of the vote, D.C. Council at-large Democratic primary candidate U.S. Shadow Representative Dr. Oye Owolewa is ahead of his eight opponents, albeit not with enough to prevent another round of tabulation.
Weeks prior to Election Day, Raj called her campaign on-the-ground organizing a game-changer.
“We’re seeing that reflected in the conversations that we’re having with voters,” Raj told The Informer. “The majority of people I talked to were saying that they had just ranked me number one, or they were planning to… That energy and the grassroots support really comes from having done that organizing over the years and having provided voters with a vision for a more affordable, better D.C.”
Owolewa, one of the first candidates to jump into the at-large council race, rose to top of a field that included: Kevin B. Chavous, a former staffer of outgoing At-large D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D), gun violence prevention guru Greg Jackson, former D.C. State Board of Education Representative Lisa Raymond, labor organizer Dyana Forester, teacher, entrepreneur and former legislative staffer Leniqua’domnique Jenkins, policy wonk and former D.C. government personnel Candace Tiana Nelson, former D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustment chair Fred Hill, and former teacher/principal Dwight Davis.
Earlier in the day, Owolewa spoke about what a first-round victory would amount to, even if he weren’t able to clinch 51% of the vote.
“Statistically, the person who comes in first place in ranked-choice voting usually wins in about 94% of the vote,” Owolewa told The Informer.
During the race, Owolewa counted among those who endorsed fellow candidates, even as he faced attacks from independent expenditure committees representing Raymond and Jackson. He said he’s focused less on conflict, and more on a platform that includes: health care for seniors, tuition-free education at University of District of Columbia, safety, affordability, and job creation.
“We’ve seen different billion dollar backed organizations throw out a couple of names, you know, and whatnot, and maybe that has an impact,” Owolewa told The Informer, “but you have to remember that you’re not running against anybody anymore because folks can be collaborators. You don’t have to move people off of that person or tear down another person. You can talk about your platform and hope that you get ranked high enough that can make a difference in a future round.”
At This Point, Victory Almost Certain for Elissa Silverman
On Tuesday, Silverman emerged victorious in the race for the Independent at-large seat against D.C. Councilmember Doni Crawford and D.C. State Board of Education President Jacque Patterson, both of whom formed a coalition against her weeks prior.
With some of the first-round ranked-choice voting ballots counted, Silverman has secured 54.75% of the vote, compared to Crawford’s 24.81% and Patterson’s 19.27%. Yet-to-be completed tabulation of results notwithstanding, she’s well on her way to a council return.
“I’ve heard from many residents across the city that they’ve missed that inquisitive voice,” said Silverman, a former journalist. “This is very fulfilling.”
In 2022, Silverman lost her reelection bid when McDuffie, who didn’t make the ballot in the D.C. attorney general Democratic primary, took aim at her seat. When McDuffie resigned from the independent at-large council seat to run for mayor last year, Silverman counted among dozens who applied for the interim position.
Mendelson eventually appointed Crawford, a former McDuffie staffer, to the position. Weeks later, Silverman announced her candidacy in the independent at-large D.C. Council special election, leveraging name recognition and experience, all the while up against: Mendelson’s endorsement of Crawford; a Black woman coalition that discouraged voters from ranking her; and American Future, a pro-online gambling independent expenditure committee, pumping out ads against her.
Silverman said her saving grace was the real-life effects of legislation that she championed while on the council.
“One of the first events I went to to collect signatures was a Ward 7 Democrats meeting and the person in front of me… had her 14-month-old in her arms, and said, ‘Elissa, I know we fought you on paid leave, but it’s made such a difference in my life and the life of my fiance,’” Silverman recounted. “I’ve heard from people who’ve come up to me and said, ‘You helped me during COVID.’ A lot of the people we helped were hospitality workers.”
Despite her rapport for supporting parents and members of the working class, Silverman garnered a reputation for polarization. She said her years away from the Wilson Building allowed for reflection and re-calibration.
“My one regret with paid leave is that it …caused this rift between the executive and the business community and me,” Silverman told The Informer. “In the end, we all have the goal of making the District prosperous and successful and a place of opportunity for all. One thing I will be very intentional about is making sure that even when there are differences it doesn’t get personal [and] that we will keep the focus on making sure programs work.”
Patterson, who’s already launched his 2027 campaign for the independent at-large D.C. Council seat, won the Ward 8 Democrats straw poll last month. As one who champions Ward 8, Patterson said his special election cross- endorsement with Crawford came from their passion for helping communities of color, the latter of which he said Silverman lacked.
“What a lot of people don’t understand is that [when Silverman was in office] she cut some of the budgets for some of the most vital things in communities of color,” Patterson said. “That’s the type of person that we realized that Ms. Silverman was, so we felt it incumbent for us to make sure that we combined our forces to make sure that either one of us got in.”
Crawford, who earned her chops as an equity advocate and as a staff member in the council’s Committee on Business and Economic Development, spoke to the need for the council to improve its relationship with residents east of the Anacostia River.
“I wanted to make sure from my very first day that I was reaching out to advisory neighborhood commission chairs, to community organizations, civic associations [that] operate primarily in Ward 7 and 8,” Crawford said. “That’s the kind of council member that I wanted to be. Unfortunately, I have seen that one of the other candidates in the race has not done that as a sitting council member.”
Silverman told The Informer that, with the council to go to recess within a matter of weeks, she’s focused on proper oversight.
“In terms of what committees I’d serve on, that’s up to the chairman and the current council, but I have expertise in certain areas: labor, housing, finance, and human services,” Silverman said. “I’m happy to sit on the committees Councilmember Crawford’s currently assigned to. I’m happy to play whatever the chairman might see as a productive role for me.”
Ranked-Choice Voting and the Work Left to be Done
During the last few weeks of what’s been a highly consequential Democratic primary, District voters have either mailed their ranked-choice ballots or placed them in dropboxes. Others who performed their civic duty did so during the early voting period and on Election Day.
Either way, non-party affiliated voters didn’t have much of a say in who will occupy the majority-Democratic city’s three branches of government. If not for the independent D.C. Council special election, non-party voters wouldn’t have been able to participate in the primary elections, as outlined in a voter-approved ballot measure.
Lisa D.T. Rice, a non-party voter who lives in Ward 7, called it a travesty.
“For the first time in three decades, our delegate office is open,” Rice said. “For the first time in 11 years, our mayoral slot is open. Our at-large council member Anita Bonds decided not to run, so there are nine people vying for that. We should all have a stake in that. We should all be able to elect the people that are going to work for us.”
Much to Rice’s chagrin, the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, as approved by the D.C. Council last year, only funded the ranked-choice voting portion of Initiative 83, a ballot measure that she and other members of Make All Votes Count DC successfully organized around during the 2024 election season. Without the allocation of funds, D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) couldn’t facilitate a process that would allow non-party voters to submit primary ballots.
“The council made a political decision, which many of them are couching as a financial decision,” Rice told The Informer. “It’s not. It’s only a million dollars that is literally a rounding error in this multibillion-dollar budget. I’m hopeful because we still have time to get the council to do the right thing and vote.”
On the morning of June 16, with the second reading of the Fiscal Year 2027 budget a week away, Rice stood in front of Turkey Thicket Recreation Center with a large sign bearing the words, “I cannot vote in the primary today. Ask me why.” This act, similar to demonstrations Rice conducted at other voting centers in years past, followed a go-go showcase that Rank the District hosted earlier this month.
It also followed Rice’s appeals to council members, including Crawford and D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8), both of whom weren’t on the council at the time of the legislative body’s budget vote last year.
“Councilmember Crawford is an independent herself, so she can’t even vote in this huge transformational election,” Rice said. “We’ve talked to a couple of folks that are ‘nos’ and really trying to express to them [that they] have to think about this in terms of democracy.”
Nearly six miles away at Arthur Capper Recreation Center in Southwest, campaign volunteers and posters lined the sidewalk leading up to the gymnasium doors. That’s where a Lewis George supporter by the name of Matt M. said he submitted his mail-in ballot.
“Janesse was my top choice for [the ballot], so I didn’t quite do the rank choice,” said Matt M. who counted housing, youth development and the end of federal occupation as his top priorities. “I felt like she kind of had the best interests for the residents of D.C. and less like external constituents.”
Matt M. further explained that, as a renter, he’s incurred more fees while seeing more vacancies in his apartment. Six years after moving to Ward 8, he says homeownership is becoming a “fight dream.”
“I have missed the boat over the past couple of years to buy a place,” he said, “but I don’t know if it was ever a feasible thing to own one in D.C.”
Days prior, during the early voting period, native Washingtonian Phillip Lee told The Informer that he cast his vote for Lewis George out of concern about what he called limited funding for youth programming and recreational centers. He expressed his belief that the Ward 4 council member will bring about real change, especially since she pledged to stand up to Trump.
“I [have] seen them [National Guard troops] whoop a little young boy the other day,” Lee told The Informer. “We need to get rid of them.”
Miles away, along Connecticut Avenue in Northwest, Mary and Craig O’Neil walked out of the University of District of Columbia Student Center alongside their first-time voter daughter and “I voted” stickers in hand.
Though the couple identified their top issues as: affordable housing, and defending the District against the Trump White House, Mary broke away from Craig by ranking McDuffie as her first choice for mayor.
“It’s important to balance progressive ideas and realism, which is why I enjoy ranked-choice voting” Mary told The Informer.
