D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser congratulated her successor, Council member Janeese Lewis George, on Wednesday, one day after the 38-year-old easily won an election that will make her the latest self-described socialist to take over the reins of a major American city.
Ms. Bowser offered praise to the incoming mayor and acknowledged the election as a passing-of-the-torch moment after her own 12 years as the city’s chief executive.
“Good morning DC. This is what the other side looks like,” the mayor said Wednesday on her seldom-used personal social media account. “We promised to get here with our Home Rule in tact and electing our next leaders. Congratulations to Mayor-Elect Janeese Lewis George. I’ll run through the tape and support a seamless transition. I love you, DC.”
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Ms. Lewis George grabbed 84% of the vote Tuesday night, breezing past her primary competitors who ran as independents and members of the Statehood Green Party.
General elections are a matter of procedure in the Democrat-heavy District once a candidate emerges from the party primaries over the summer.
The mayor-to-be said her transition team will conduct an audit of city agencies as she prepares to assume office in January.
“My commitment to you is that this will be a transparent process that is accessible because that’s what it means to build a people-first government,” Ms. Lewis George said. I look forward to working with Mayor Bowser and her team and administration in what will be a successful transition.”
She joins a growing roster of mayors, including New York City’s Zohran Mamdani and Seattle’s Katie Wilson, who identify themselves as “democratic socialists.”
In Los Angeles, socialist candidate Nithya Raman also held a narrow lead over incumbent Mayor Karen Bass by Wednesday morning.
Ms. Lewis George’s audit, meant to target administrative bloat, is part of her plan to leverage government to tackle affordability issues. Another has been to create a new tax on D.C. businesses whose owners live outside of the city.
Funds created by those efforts, she has promised, will be used to expand rent control, build more than 70,000 housing units over the next five years, and push to make sure no family pays more than 7% of its household income for childcare.
The future mayor’s job will be complicated by President Trump, one of her more influential residents. The president has frequently inserted himself in local D.C. matters, from his ongoing National Guard deployment and federal crimefighting efforts to homelessness sweeps.
Ms. Lewis George, who had harsher words for the president during the primary campaign than she did as the election neared, told WTTG-TV she was “willing to work” with the Trump administration when it’s in the best interest of Washingtonians.
The mayor-elect said she’s also hired a firm to begin searching for a new city police chief.
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