Socialist City Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George won Washington D.C.’s Democratic mayoral primary putting her on track to be the deep blue city’s next leader.
Lewis George won 52.9% of the first choice vote, beating out her closest challenger former City Councilman Kenyan McDuffie who garnered 36.4%, the Associated Press reported Thursday with 75% of the vote counted. The AP called the race nearly two full days after polls closed Tuesday night.
The race took long to call partly due to the fact that this was the first D.C. mayoral election using ranked-choice voting. No other candidate in the race received more than 4% of the vote.
Lewis George has represented the District’s Ward 4 since 2021, when she defeated a more moderate Democrat in the primary. During her campaign she has been compared to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and she is a self-described socialist. Like Mamdani, her campaign focused on cost-of-living issues and strengthening public services.
Democratic D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has led the nation’s capital since 2015, did not seek reelection to a fourth term.