jonetta rose barras: Should Mayor Muriel Bowser run for reelection?

Back in 2005, after months of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation about running for reelection, then-Mayor Anthony Williams told The Washington Post that he had been considering whether he had “the energy, the tenacity, the discipline, the focus to serve a third term.” 

Mayor Muriel Bowser should conduct a similar self-assessment as she contemplates whether to run for a fourth term. Truth be told, those particulars should be considered by anyone running for DC’s top political job; that includes at-large DC Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie and Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, whose names have been bandied about as potential candidates, especially if the incumbent chooses to retire. 

Add one more critical skill: “We should also have somebody who is transformational,” said a government insider, who, like many people with whom I spoke in the past week, requested anonymity.

If Bowser does pursue a fourth term, the insider added, she “needs some new blood” on her team. “If I were her consigliere, I would say find somebody from another place, from the outside who has a reputation for doing the kinds of things she wants to do,” added the insider.

“The mayor has a significant but limited toolbox when it comes to making generational change,” said Chuck Thies, a longtime political consultant and operative who has worked on several campaigns in DC and beyond. 

If there were a bar graph measuring McDuffie’s and Lewis George’s ratings as agents of transformational change, it probably would barely register above the baseline. Given that neither has formally entered the mayoral race, I’ll leave a full evaluation for later.

If Lewis George, a Democrat, jumps in the race, she risks very little. She won reelection in 2024 and is safely ensconced in the council until 2029. However, I have been around long enough to have seen what happened to one Ward 4 representative with mayoral ambitions: It was a factor in voters abandoning her for a political unknown who, ironically, went on to become mayor himself.

That’s no prediction or warning; I’m just sharing a fact.

McDuffie had been the Ward 5 councilmember. Then he signed up to run to become attorney general, only to have his qualifications for the office successfully challenged. He switched from the Democratic Party and won his at-large seat as an independent. Some observers thought he’d run for reelection in November 2026. 

If he pivots to the mayoral race, McDuffie will take a huge risk: He will have to give up his at-large council seat and re-register with the Democratic Party in order to compete in the June primary. He’s seen by many as likely to do so only if Bowser decides not to run.

The mayor “controls the clock. She can wait until after Christmas,” said Thies. 

Nominating petitions that candidates must have signed by registered voters of their party won’t be available until January, according to the DC Board of Elections website. Completed forms cannot be filed until Feb. 23.

As Bowser fuels the is-she-running-or-not game, District residents, who help to finance the $22 billion public corporation that is the DC government, may want to conduct their own deliberations: What do they want from her if she wants to hold onto the job for four more years — through the end of 2030? 

And if she opts out — choosing to spend more time with family, as Williams did, and bank more money for her child’s education and her own final retirement — what do voters want from a new mayor?

Assessing the most likely contenders, one insider argued that “Kenyan doesn’t have the stomach to do the job. Plus, the only big thing he has done on the council is the NEAR Act.”

Lewis George could beat McDuffie, wagered another political observer before adding that “she would wreck the government” eventually.

“She is not ready for the job. But the whole progressive community is leaning on her as their standard-bearer,” said another political insider. 

Lewis George self-identifies as a democratic socialist. Some think that the rise of Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race may be fueling the ambitions of DC’s far-left politicians and activists. 

“Washington, DC, is not New York City. You can’t Mamdani your way into the mayoral suite,” said Thies, offering that, “of the people running, [Bowser] is the best person.”

Will an unknown political player step into the field, adding energy and promise?

Nothing spectacular or transformational has occurred throughout Bowser’s nearly 12 years in office. I like the mayor, but I have made no secret of the fact that I believe her tenure has been bland, crippled repeatedly by myopia and timidity. What’s more, she has stunted her political growth and the city’s development by hiring a team largely comprised of inexperienced or mediocre individuals — people who may make her comfortable but don’t challenge her assumptions or vision. 

Consequently, Bowser has hewed to predictable municipal governance and management models and templates. While the Williams administration was transformative, recasting the city for the 21st century, and his successor, Adrian Fenty, shook up the city’s public education system, winning council approval for mayoral control, Bowser has seemed wedded to a much more basic concept of keeping the proverbial trains running on time — never mind that the trains need serious modernization and many of the stations need overhauls or relocation. 

Her greatest contribution to the District’s landscape may be sports and entertainment, although she is following Williams’ lead in this regard. She is overseeing the expansion of Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s presence in the Gallery Place corridor. The success of that venture will likely mean the disappearance of an authentic Chinatown, a disappointing feat begun under the speculative assault of real estate developer Douglas Jemal.

Bowser also persuaded the Republican Congress to lease the RFK land to the city for redevelopment. That helped her seal an agreement with the ownership team of the Washington Commanders that includes not just a new stadium but also construction of housing, hotels and retail. The project and more than $1.5 billion in public investments and incentives were approved by the council earlier this year. The stadium, which I continue to support, isn’t expected to be completed until 2030.

Bowser can’t claim it as her legacy unless she’s around for the first game. That is one reason many of the folks with whom I spoke said she should stay.

To be fair, during Bowser’s second term, she was forced to navigate a national, anti-police and anti-institutional racism movement; confront and negotiate the challenges posed by an ego-driven, conspiracy-embracing president who seemed a character straight out of a Gabriel García Márquez novel; and meet the unprecedented and significant demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, in the final years of her third term she is tangling, once again, with the presidential madman, who has upended normal life in the city, calling in the National Guard while unleashing mask-wearing federal agents who are snatching American citizens along with documented and undocumented immigrants off DC streets. As a result, many people are angry and feel unsafe, and business owners have lost clientele and seen a reduction in their profits. Simultaneously, Trump’s MAGA allies in Congress have aggressively interfered with DC’s self-governance while impeding the city’s ability to spend its locally raised revenue. 

Who would want to spend two years dancing with Trump — even in that 999-person ballroom he is wrecking the White House to construct?

Bowser has received intense criticism for allowing the DC Metropolitan Police Department to work in collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, despite their brutal treatment of immigrants and others. But many citizens and insiders give her credit for deftly handling Trump 2.0 and preventing a full takeover of the city.

“Residents are sharing pain and frustration; they’d like their elected leader to sound like Governor Pritzker [of Illinois]. I get that. But we’re not a state … . We’re a federal enclave,” said Kathy Patterson, the DC auditor and former Ward 3 councilmember. 

“It’s a tough road for our mayor, for any DC mayor. I think Mayor Bowser has been largely successful in striking a good balance, and has done so at her political peril,” added Patterson.

All that’s true. 

The evaluation of the local mayor can’t rest solely around her handling of a national fool. It requires a tighter focus on what has been done to improve the city and improve the quality of life for the 700,000 people who call DC home.

“When she first came into office, she talked about ending homelessness; that’s like holding back the tide,” said Thies. “Homelessness has not changed dramatically during her tenure.”

Bowser did, however, build family shelters across the District to replace the horrible facility at DC General. She exceeded her goal of constructing or preserving 36,000 housing units in the city, though she fell short of the related target of 12,000 affordable housing units. She and her team have been pushing for more housing downtown, by providing perks like extended tax abatements to real estate owners who convert their commercial office buildings to rental units or condominiums. That doesn’t seem like a rescue for the people most in need of affordable housing.

Recently, she has advanced legislation that strips tenants of various protections and rights, including those under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. That has not won her many friends in working-class and low-income communities, where McDuffie and Lewis George have standing. 

Once upon a time, Bowser was likewise seen as an ally. The votes she won from residents east of the Anacostia River helped her topple Mayor Vincent Gray. Now, nothing is guaranteed.

“One big thing she can do,” suggested Thies, “if I’m Bowser, I would pivot to education.

“Remember when Adrian Fenty won every precinct because of education. Vincent Gray came in with Birth to Three, universal education,” continued Thies. “We need to finish the job.”

Except that during my interview with Council Chair Phil Mendelson, who has been doing a series of roundtables focused on government spending, he told me that apparently one plan the mayor has for dealing with what could be a tight fiscal year 2027 budget is “cutting the per pupil spending” affecting all schools, traditional and charters.

If Bowser is actually pursuing that proposal, she couldn’t possibly intend to run for a fourth term. That is, unless she has a secret sauce that she thinks will get her through the whirlwind of controversy she’d be creating just ahead of the June primary.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.