Janeese Lewis George, a socialist councilwoman, is poised to become the District of Columbia’s next mayor, an electoral outcome that is expected to revive President Donald Trump’s scrutiny of the local government after months of intervening in its affairs.
Although votes continue to be counted, Lewis George’s more centrist opponent, Kenyan McDuffie, conceded the race on Thursday morning, clearing the way for a new era of Washington, D.C., politics after a decade with Mayor Muriel Bowser at the helm as mayor.
Bowser had settled into an uneasy truce with Trump, cooperating with his takeover of the district, a move that came with a heavy National Guard presence, last year. But Lewis George’s election could change that dynamic, and the president recently indicated he’ll ratchet up the federal government’s involvement if she won.
When asked last week about the prospect of Lewis George winning, Trump told reporters he “wouldn’t like it.”
“Maybe we take back Washington and run it on a federal basis,” he said at the White House. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not going to lose our businesses.”
Lewis George has indicated she will work with Trump on select issues, but has called the district’s autonomy a “nonnegotiable” and has broadly said the same on protecting its “immigrant community and neighbors, our black youth.”
In one significant policy shift, Lewis George campaigned on repealing former Metropolitan Police Department chief Pamela Smith’s executive order directing her officers to cooperate with federal immigration authorities for individuals not in police custody.
“They can’t occupy the same space at the same time, thus conflict,” said Craig Shirley, a Ronald Reagan biographer and former Republican strategist.
He further described Trump and Lewis George as two “ideologues” poised to clash, while Darrell West, governance studies chairman at the Brookings Institution, predicted Trump would undermine D.C.’s power to govern itself.
“She will be a perfect foil in his fight against wokism,” West told the Washington Examiner. “She will find he has many ways to make her life difficult.”
The District of Columbia is only semiautonomous, and Congress has the power to overturn its laws — a fact that Trump put on clear display when he federalized its police force as part of a crackdown on crime. The National Guard personnel he deployed, meanwhile, are still patrolling the city’s streets.
Still, Bowser found a middle ground with Trump, and he backed away from certain attempts at federalization, including the appointment of his own police chief. Bowser was one of his loudest critics during his first term in office, but changed course in his second, even meeting with the president-elect at his private Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida during the transition period.
George Mason University political science professor Jeremy Mayer quipped that “Bowser didn’t make nice with Trump because she liked him.”
“She did it because the president, particularly when Congress is dysfunctional and spineless, can do a lot of damage to D.C.,” Mayer told the Washington Examiner.
So far, Lewis George has emphasized investments in Union Station, a transit hub, as one possible area for common ground.
Trump has already taken a greater interest in the district than many of his predecessors, with last summer’s carjacking attack on Edward Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer, provoking his use of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 to declare a “crime emergency” and place the MPD under federal control for 30 days.
That was followed by the deployment of more than 1,000 National Guard members and other federal officers in Washington. Almost a year later, federal authorities last month asked for an additional 1,500 Guard members in D.C., bringing the combined force to 5,000, as part of a summer surge for the country’s 250th birthday celebrations.
There are also Trump’s beautification efforts, from his $14 million resurfacing of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall to his diversion of $90 million in national park fees to restore 22 D.C. monuments, statues, and fountains. The president also wants to build a $100 million Triumphal Arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.
“A socialist mayor in our nation’s capital will almost certainly lead to President Trump keeping troops deployed, federalizing the D.C. Police, and pushing Congress to repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973,” Mike Davis, a Trump ally and Article III Project founder and president, told the Washington Examiner.
For Democratic strategist Jim Manley, until D.C. receives statehood, Lewis George is about to “find out the political reality that she is facing.”
“That is that Trump is prepared to make life difficult for the residents of the district, which he can do because of the way the district is treated in the Constitution and because of D.C. Home Rule,” Manley told the Washington Examiner.
While D.C.’s mayor and council have governed the district since 1973, Congress has the right to review and repeal its laws and budget, as well as appoint its judges, despite residents not having voting representation in federal politics.
Congress last used its right of review under former President Joe Biden in 2023, the first time since 1991, over a crime bill that would have reduced penalties for violent crimes.
The last time the federal government took over D.C. was in 1995 under former President Bill Clinton through the bipartisan District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act, introduced to counter scandal-ridden Mayor Marion Barry.
To that end, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) introduced the Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident Act last February, which, if passed, would repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act and permit more federal control.
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When asked whether he would reintroduce that legislation if Lewis George is inaugurated next year, Lee (R-UT) told the Washington Examiner that “Washington is our nation’s capital, belonging to all Americans.”
“That is why the Constitution authorized Congress to govern it,” Lee said. “For any D.C. Mayor or city council to defy federal law and harbor criminals is a national disgrace. I have already introduced the BOWSER Act revoking home rule for DC, which becomes even more important if an anti-policing socialist tries to ruin the city.”