Janeese Lewis George has opened an 11-point lead over Kenyan McDuffie in a new poll as DC heads toward Tuesday’s mayoral primary, putting her in position to shape the city’s next chapter. The survey, released by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, gives the two-term councilmember the clearest edge yet in a race that could decide who runs Washington this year.
That lead is the reason Lewis George is drawing so much attention now. A Democratic primary winner in DC is likely to carry the November election, which means the contest is effectively the city’s most important decision of the year. Lewis George, a democratic socialist, has campaigned on a people-first platform, promising to lower childcare costs and utility bills, stabilize rent for tenants and prioritize down payment assistance for homebuyers.
The poll numbers matter because they show the race is not just close, but defined by competing visions of power and governing style. Lewis George has said she would build relationships with members of Congress and look for areas of compromise with the Trump administration, while keeping DC autonomy and DC statehood as non-negotiables. She has also said her immigrant community and neighbors and Black youth are non-negotiables, and that Union Station could become a regional transit hub that creates jobs for the city.
McDuffie, a former at-large councilmember and former prosecutor, is backed by much of Washington’s business community, including restaurants and realtors. He has promised to expand affordable housing, improve public safety and diversify the local economy, and he has said he would be a fighter for Washingtonians while working with the attorney general to preserve DC home rule. Muriel Bowser said on 10 June that she has always supported McDuffie, though she also said she was not making an endorsement for mayor as she stepped off the political stage.
Trump has now injected a sharper edge into the race. A week before the election, he threatened DC home rule if Lewis George wins, saying he would not like it and raising the prospect of taking back Washington and running it on the federal basis. That threat does not spell out an easy legal path, but it does put the issue of local control directly before voters, just as public safety, housing affordability and increased federal immigration enforcement continue to dominate the campaign.
For Lewis George, the question is whether her lead can hold while Trump makes DC autonomy itself part of the ballot. For voters, Tuesday will answer something even larger: whether Washington wants a mayor who starts from compromise with federal power or one who treats home rule as the line that cannot be crossed.
