Janeese Lewis George, a Washington, DC, councilmember and main candidate for mayor, was knocking on doorways when her crew acquired phrase that President Donald Trump stated he wouldn’t “put up with it” if the democratic socialist wins her Tuesday major.
“Maybe we’ll take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” Trump advised reporters within the Oval Office Thursday.
Her crew paused its canvassing, huddled collectively and inside a couple of hours launched a response.
“Threatening home rule because you don’t like how residents are voting is an attack on democracy itself,” Lewis George stated in a video, referencing DC’s proper to self-governance. “The people of DC elect their mayor, and they want someone who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump.”
The feedback from the president underscored a debate on the heart of the DC mayor’s race over what form of chief Democrats within the district need standing between them and an administration threatening their autonomy.
It’s a query that’s dominated Democratic primaries throughout the nation this election cycle, endangering incumbents who some voters say aren’t doing sufficient to push again on the Trump administration. But the deliberations over how to battle a president whose celebration controls each chambers of Congress have uniquely excessive stakes in DC, the place 1000’s of National Guard troops nonetheless patrol the streets and the menace of federal interference is ever current.
Both Lewis George and her fundamental major opponent, the extra average former DC councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, have vowed to tackle the president, construct bridges with members of Congress and battle to defend house rule.
McDuffie, who spent 13 years on the DC council earlier than resigning earlier this yr, stated he has the expertise to “wage a smart fight” towards the president. He argued the president’s feedback about Lewis George present he would use her as an efficient foil if she’s elected.
“If you believe Donald Trump is a threat to DC’s local autonomy, then the last thing we should do is elect someone whose agenda would make it easier for him to justify federal intervention,” McDuffie advised NCS. “My message is simple: don’t give Donald Trump what he wants.”
Lewis George, in the meantime, has been extra essential of outgoing Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, the longtime incumbent who has sought to discover a center floor between working with the administration and asserting DC’s rights. She’s additionally received the help of teams like Free DC, which fashioned final yr to advocate for DC house rule and statehood.
Lewis George, who was elected to the DC Council in 2020, has pushed again on the suggestion that her election would give the president cowl to intervene within the district’s affairs.
“Kenyan McDuffie has not figured out what the rest of us have. You don’t stop Donald Trump by fearing him,” Lewis George stated in an announcement to NCS. “I’m a daughter of the District, and I’ve been fighting for DC statehood my entire life. I’m not going to take a lecture from Kenyan McDuffie on Home Rule.”
When requested for extra details about Trump’s menace to exert federal management over DC, the White House referred NCS to the president’s Oval Office remarks.
Phil Mendelson, the chairman of the DC council, stated that whereas candidates discuss combating Trump on the marketing campaign path, “being in office is different.”
“I would describe it, in a word or two, as a balancing act,” he stated. “That’s what Mayor Bowser has been attempting for the last couple of years. I think in the eyes of the residents she has not done a good enough job at that.”
DC has solely been in a position to elect its personal authorities because the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973. But even that autonomy is proscribed. DC’s delegate to Congress is a non-voting member. Congress can overturn DC legal guidelines, an influence it has exercised hardly ever over the past 50 years. It may also cross laws to repeal the Home Rule Act, although there seems to be little urge for food to achieve this. A GOP-backed measure to overturn house rule — named the BOWSER Act — failed to acquire any traction.
Last August, the president despatched National Guard troops to DC and declared a criminal offense emergency within the district, permitting the federal authorities to take management of the town’s police division for 30 days.
Bowser was essential of the federal takeover and labored to stop an extension of the 30-day emergency that allowed it to occur. But she confronted widespread backlash over what some seen as her efforts to appease the administration, together with crediting a discount in crime to the surge in federal legislation enforcement.
Bowser’s cooperation marked a reversal from Trump’s first time period, when the mayor was a number one determine within the Democratic resistance. This time round, she met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago membership earlier than he retook workplace, and in March 2025 announced the removal of Black Lives Matter Plaza, a two-block landmark close to the White House that she as soon as championed, after the president and congressional Republicans in Congress threatened to minimize greater than $1 billion from the town’s finances. “We have bigger fish to fry,” she advised NCS on the time.
A Washington Post/Schar School poll launched earlier this month discovered that fifty% of DC registered voters wished Bowser to do extra to oppose Trump, in contrast to 34% who stated she was dealing with the town’s relationship with the president good. Seventy-nine % of voters disapproved of the federal takeover of DC’s police division.
A spokesperson for the mayor declined an interview request from NCS.
‘Pandering’ guarantees to battle Trump?
Whoever wins Tuesday’s major will be closely favored to win the November common election. The next mayor will have to strike their very own steadiness between working with and combating towards the Trump administration in the course of the president’s last two years in workplace – and there’s not but a transparent reply as to which candidate DC residents favor.
The Post/Schar School ballot discovered that below the town’s new ranked selection voting system, 32% of registered Democratic major voters stated they might rank Lewis George first, 25% stated their first selection is McDuffie, and one other 26% stated they have been undecided. Democratic voters have been break up on who they trusted extra to deal with DC’s relationship with the Trump administration, with 35% saying McDuffie and 32% saying Lewis George, inside the margin of error.
Critics of Bowser’s method argue she has at instances complied upfront with the federal authorities.
“History teaches us that that positioning of, ‘Oh, let’s not make trouble,’ is actually very dangerous … and we’ve seen that from our current mayor a lot,” stated Alex Dodds, the marketing campaign director for Free DC. “We were really looking for a mayoral champion who would assert those rights.”
But others stress that any DC mayor should work with the federal authorities. Bill Lightfoot, a former DC councilman who ran the mayoral campaigns of each Bowser and former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, stated candidates’ guarantees to battle Trump have been “pandering.”
“The candidates are just blowing smoke. They’re telling the people what the people want to hear,” Lightfoot stated. “As a practical matter, they have no power, no resources, to oppose the president.”
He stated he anticipated that whoever wins the mayoral race will request a gathering with the president, simply as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani did last year. “And then they’re going to play nice,” Lightfoot stated.
While the Trump issue has dominated a lot of the race, Democratic candidates have nonetheless had to make their case to voters on affordability points and public security.
Lewis George’s marketing campaign has drawn comparisons to that of Mamdani, one other democratic socialist who defeated an establishment-backed average in 2025.
“What Mayor Mamdani and other rising leaders have been saying, and I agree with this, is that people need to see that government can work for them – not just the wealthy and well-connected,” she stated in an announcement to NCS.
McDuffie has sought to paint Lewis George as a much less skilled candidate with an unrealistic platform. He’s additionally accused her of being gentle on crime over her opposition to imposing youth curfews to curb situations of giant gatherings of youngsters behaving disruptively in public areas. Lewis George argues curfews are harmful due to issues over how federal officers would implement them.
Lewis George has attacked McDuffie over his donors and stated he didn’t do sufficient to battle for decrease utility prices, a declare he referred to as a “lie.”
Sam Epps, the president of Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, which has backed Lewis George, stated the candidate’s concentrate on cost-of-living issues is a component of why they’re supporting her.
“It costs our members more money to pay for rent, to put gas in their car, to buy groceries, and Janeese Lewis George is the one who we believe — and we are supporting full throttle — that she will help tackle these affordability issues,” Epps stated.
For others, the race has come down to expertise.
Ashley Ruff, a DC native and advisory neighborhood council commissioner in Southeast DC, stated she’s supporting McDuffie as a result of he has an extended report of combating Trump throughout his tenure on the DC council. She stated she wished to vote for a candidate who she felt had proven they heard her.
“I want to go for somebody that, you’re going to hear my voice, you’re going to come and help me clean up my neighborhood, but also you’re not going to push the people out of my neighborhood because you’re going to try to make things better,” she stated. “Things don’t just happen overnight.”