Ward 8 is 81% Black, and in June it gave Janeese Lewis George a 15-point win in the Democratic mayoral primary. On Nov. 3 she won the general election, and the Black neighborhoods that carried her are now waiting to see what a democratic socialist mayor does with a city President Donald Trump has already threatened to take over.
Lewis George, 38, will be sworn in Jan. 2, 2027, succeeding Muriel Bowser. She is the city’s first democratic socialist mayor, according to the Associated Press. Trump threatened a Home Rule takeover if she won and, after the primary, called her a communist on social media.
Who voted for her
Before the primary, the argument was that she would appeal mainly to white newcomers and that a rival, Kenyan McDuffie, would hold Black voters. The primary results did not bear that out. She won 54% citywide, and The New Republic reported that she carried Ward 8 by 15 points and Ward 5, which is 55% Black and McDuffie’s home ward, by 20. McDuffie’s best showing came in Ward 3, which is 69% white.
That matters because Washington’s Black population has stopped growing while the rest of the city has. The Census Bureau counted 304,452 residents who identify as Black alone in July 2024, less than half the city. The people who stayed are the ones facing the rent, the utility bills and the child care costs she ran on.
Her program is built on those costs: universal child care, more affordable housing, lower utility rates, free buses for residents enrolled in SNAP, and an end to Metropolitan Police Department cooperation with ICE.
The fights already lined up
Her transition team, announced Nov. 4, is led by Jennifer Levy, a former New York deputy attorney general. It is running a search for a police chief with the Police Executive Research Forum and is arranging a White House meeting, WJLA reported, on Union Station and federal land. The District faces a projected budget gap of $650 million to $850 million for fiscal 2028. Asked how she would close it, she said: “We’re going to try to find efficiencies and savings where we can.”
Business leaders worry about her proposed tax on law firms, lobbyists and consultants. The police union, which supported Trump’s National Guard deployment, is one of the groups she has met, the Washington Sun reported. After her primary win she said she would “work with this administration to the benefit of D.C. residents” while standing up to it when needed.
Those who voted for her were not asking for a truce with the people who want to run the city from the White House. Black Washington has been told for a decade that its city was changing without it. It has now chosen who will lead the change. The test comes Jan. 2, with a budget gap to close, a police chief to pick and a president who has said what he would do if she won.
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