Lewis George leads D.C. mayoral race as ranked-choice count continues

Janeese Lewis George moved into a clear early lead over Kenyan McDuffie, putting a self-described democratic socialist at the center of Washington’s first open mayoral contest in roughly 12 years. With about two-thirds of ballots counted, Lewis George had 53 percent to McDuffie’s 37 percent, a margin that underscored how sharply the District’s race for City Hall has turned into a test of the city’s political direction.

The contest carries national weight because Muriel Bowser is not seeking re-election, leaving Washington without an incumbent in a city where the mayor’s office has often set the tone for debates over housing, policing and affordability. Lewis George, a two-term Ward 4 councilmember elected to the D.C. Council in 2020, is the first self-described democratic socialist to serve on the council since Hilda Mason left office in 1998. Her rise suggests that at least a sizable share of voters in the nation’s capital is open to a more explicitly left-leaning governing style, even as the city faces pressure over cost of living and economic slowdown.

McDuffie, who formerly served as an at-large Council member, re-registered as a Democrat to run for mayor and entered the race with Bowser’s backing. Bowser has said she has long supported McDuffie and warned that the next mayor will need to improve the city’s business climate. The race also featured five other candidates, Vincent Orange, Gary Goodweather, Rini Sampath, Hope Solomon and Ernest Johnson, but the first count showed them trailing far behind the two front-runners.

The election is the first in the District to use ranked-choice voting after voters approved Initiative 83 in 2024, making the outcome more complex than a simple plurality count. Election officials said the final result could take days because mail ballots that arrived on Election Day still had to be processed before ranked-choice rounds could be run. About 103,000 ballots had been counted in the initial tabulation, and early in-person voting had run from June 8 through June 14.

Pre-election polling had already pointed to a competitive but fluid race. A Washington Post-Schar School survey showed Lewis George ahead by double digits while also finding a sizable pool of undecided voters, a sign that the early lead may not translate cleanly into the final round of counting. Even so, the opening tally sent a strong signal that Washington voters may be prepared to reward a more progressive vision for city government at a moment when Democrats nationwide are still weighing how far left their urban coalitions want to go.