Follow WTOP’s team coverage of the D.C. primary and Election 2026 online, on air at 103.5 FM or on the WTOP News app. See live results as they come in after polls close at 8 p.m.

Voters in D.C. cast their ballots Tuesday in a primary election to decide party nominees in races for mayor, delegate to Congress, attorney general and several council seats.

The winners of Democratic primaries in D.C. are all but assured to win in November, since nearly 75% of registered voters in the District are Democrats, according to the Independent Voter Project.

Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie, who served together on the D.C. Council, emerged as the two favorites in the mayor’s race after Muriel Bowser announced she would not seek a fourth term.

Lewis George has laid out more ambitious plans to address affordability issues, including expanding access to universal childcare and developing 72,000 units of housing, a plan McDuffie called unrealistic and just rhetoric.

Meanwhile, McDuffie has pitched plans he’s promised to deliver and has focused on the issue of public safety, pushing for curfew measures Lewis George is against and saying he’d increase funding and staffing for D.C.’s police department.

The race for D.C.’s delegate to Congress was also something of a two-horse race between current council members Robert White and Brooke Pinto, though polling ahead of election day indicated White had a significant edge.

In the race for attorney general, incumbent Brian Schwalb is facing a single Democratic challenger, J.P. Szymkowicz.

New mayor for first time in 12 years

Lewis George had the edge over McDuffie in the mayor’s race in available polling data before election day, holding a five-point edge in City Cast D.C.’s poll published in May.

She’s in the middle of her second term as Ward 4’s council member, and previously served in the D.C. Office of the Attorney General as assistant attorney general in the juvenile section of the public safety division.

McDuffie is a more experience D.C. council member, serving for more than 13 years before resigning last year to pursue his mayoral run. Previously, he also worked as a prosecutor and later served in former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department.

The successor to DC’s ‘Warrior on the Hill’

It’s been even longer since D.C. had a new delegate to Congress — 36 years, to be exact.

With the exit of Eleanor Holmes Norton, White and Pinto are the frontrunners in a field of five Democratic candidates.

Pinto is also in the middle of her second term on the D.C. Council, serving as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety. Before that, she worked in the D.C. Office of the Attorney General.

White has served on the D.C. Council for nine years and has previously served as legislative counsel to Norton and as director of community outreach for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General.

Challenge to DC’s attorney general

Schwalb is wrapping up his first term as D.C. attorney general. Before assuming the office in 2023, Schwalb served as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, then entered private practice and ascended to Venable’s firm-wide vice chairman and partner-in-charge of Venable’s D.C. office.

His challenger, Szymkowicz, of Szymkowicz & Szymkowicz law firm in D.C., has served as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for Foxhall for seven years and has made campaign promises to crack down on crime, predatory landlords and go after those with unpaid traffic violations.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in the nation’s capital head to the polls on Tuesday to select party candidates for mayor and the district’s delegate to Congress, an election taking place as Washington undergoes major change under President Donald Trump’s administration.

The primary marks the first time in a generation that D.C. residents will vote for a new mayor and delegate in the same election. And in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, that party’s winner is expected to come out on top in the general election in November.

The most prominent race is for mayor after Muriel Bowser, who was first elected in 2014, decided not to seek a fourth term. Democratic front-runners Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie are hoping to replace her.

The district’s long-serving congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is also stepping down, with top candidates council member Brooke Pinto and at-large council member Robert White Jr. vying for the role. Republican Denise Rosado, an immigration lawyer, is running unopposed.

The primary will include rank choice voting for the first time, which D.C. election officials have warned could delay results for days.

Trump looms large over the vote

Central to all the campaigns has been the city’s fraught relationship with the Trump administration and the federal government. The city has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.

That autonomy has been further squeezed under Trump, who launched a federal law enforcement surge last summer and sent in the National Guard for an ongoing, open-ended deployment. Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of people their jobs. He has also been reshaping the city by removing or renovating storied landmarks and putting his name or image on buildings.

Trump just last week threatened a new federal takeover of Washington, when asked about his response to a potential victory by Lewis George, a democratic socialist.

“Maybe we’d take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” he said.

Bowser found herself walking a fine line between staying in Trump’s good graces and responding to the concerns of constituents, many of whom said she didn’t push back hard enough on Trump’s actions.

Republicans in Congress meanwhile have used their oversight authority to challenge the local government’s limited autonomy.

“We are the capital of the United States, and it’s an incredibly symbolic place, this city,” said Amanda Huron, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia who teaches courses on D.C. history and politics.

She said it’s important to remind the public that what the federal government does to its capital city is a harbinger of “how it’s going to treat the rest of the country as well.”

Federal intervention, affordability among candidates’ top priorities

Lewis George, in responding to questions sent by The Associated Press, said her top priority is addressing “the affordability crisis here in DC, which the Trump administration has only made worse by unjustly firing federal employees en masse and militarizing our streets.”

McDuffie said his top priority is public safety. He would add 1,000 police officers over four years and take a public health approach to violence reduction that would include a focus on mental health.

Other candidates for mayor include former council member Vincent Orange and Hope Solomon, a former federal contractor who lost her job because of cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency.

Some residents have expressed concern on how Trump will react to pushback. Pat Wheeler, who lives in Washington, said candidates must be realistic. Trump still has enormous power over the Republican Congress and could easily order members to take steps against the city’s home rule authority, she said.

Five people are seeking to replace Norton, who is finishing her 18th term representing D.C. in Congress. Norton, 89, faced heavy pressure to stand down by critics, including her former chief of staff, who said she was diminished and not capable of mounting the defense the moment called for against Trump.

Pinto and White both say their top priority for the city is self-governance along with affordability for middle and working class residents.

Other candidates seeking the Democratic spot on the ticket include Trent Holbrook, a former Norton staffer; Kenney Zalesne, the former Deputy National Finance Chair of the Democratic National Committee; and Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.