JLG is on the cusp

First Up

Janeese Lewis George looks like she’s on the cusp of becoming D.C.’s next mayor. With around two-thirds of the vote counted, she held 52 percent of first rank choices, a 16-point lead over Kenyan McDuffie. And the ward- and precinct-level returns suggested it was a real thumping: Lewis George led in seven of D.C.’s eight wards, narrowly trailing McDuffie only in wealthy Ward 3.

Even if the still-uncounted ballots push Lewis below fifty percent, the ranked-choice math looks really daunting for McDuffie.

The 38-year-old’s smashing night reflected a broader left-wing surge: Fellow democratic socialists Oye Owelewa and Aparna Raj also led their D.C. Council races, albeit with less than 50 percent. Elissa Silverman, the onetime anchor of the council’s progressive bloc, was on track to reclaim the seat she lost to McDuffie in 2022. And progressive Robert White romped to victory over centrist Brooke Pinto in the race for D.C. Congressional delegate.

If the results stick, it amounts to a striking rejection of outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser and the string of pro-business mayors going back to D.C.’s 1990s insolvency. Lewis George channeled the frustration of voters who feel priced out of the wealthier, spiffier District those mayors left behind — and, ironically, was propelled by the college-educated newcomers the revived city attracted.

”Let's show them what government can do,” Lewis George said in a fiery election night speech at the Howard Theater.

In fact, the contrast between Lewis George’s raucous event and McDuffie’s election-night party told a lot of the story. McDuffie’s, at the swank Park at 14th restaurant favored by the city’s old political class, the crowd was older and mostly Black. At Lewis George’s party, a younger, whiter, and hipper-looking crowd roared along as the candidate led call-and-response chants.

Though the Democratic nomination has been tantamount to an election win, controversial Democratic nominees in the past have gotten real general-election races. When Marion Barry won the 1994 nomination after a prison term, his GOP rival got 40 percent of the November vote. It’s possible that Lewis George, who petrifies the city’s business class, could yet draw a heavyweight independent challenger this fall. But her unexpectedly strong showing yesterday makes it a lot less likely.

What D.C.'s Talking About

Tenleytown Shooting. There was a ghastly scene in upper Northwest, where police shot and killed a suspect a few blocks from where they believe he killed a woman at a bus stop. Police say the man then got on a bus on Porter Street NW, which cops soon pulled over. They were in the process of evacuating passengers when the suspect reached into his bag and allegedly pulled out a gun and pointed it towards officers. The man had been arrested in prior domestic violence incidents involving the same woman.

UFC WTF. Federal authorities say they disrupted a terror attack against the White House UFC bout by a man who planned to fly bomb-carrying drones over the crowd. The suspect, a 19-year-old Ohio resident, was nabbed after his mother alerted law enforcement. According to a federal court filing, he had been communicating on TikTok with a group ominously called “Vanguard of the Old.” The filing said a search of his phone revealed conversations about targeting pro-Israel lawmakers.

Kennedy Center Latest. A judge has given the Kennedy Center three days to share its plan for staying open after July 5. The court previously temporarily blocked Trump’s two-year closure of the center, but plaintiffs worry that the Trump-appointed leadership will effectively close it by simply not booking acts.

Bleach and Nevermind. A CBS photographer recorded workers pouring bleach into the Reflecting Pool. The re-appearance of algae on the pool’s green surface has become a political issue just weeks after the Trump administration’s costly, controversial effort to paint it blue. The bleach also seems to contradict assurances officials gave to the New York Times on Sunday: “Due to deploying the advanced nanobubbler technology, the algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak.”

Airport ‘26. Trump’s semiquincentennial festivities are going to be hard on DCA travelers. The airport announced yesterday that passengers should expect big delays tied to a slew of events: The opening of the Great American State Fair (June 24-26), Military Appreciation Day (June 28), the closing of the Great American State Fair (July 10), and the Grand Prix (August 22-23), all of which will involve fireworks, flyovers, or parachute jumps. The most disruptive will be July 4, when no flights will depart after noon. Takeoffs will also pause for a few hours on July 3 for “rehearsals.”

Finally: JLG Aide in NYP. If Lewis George wins, expect to hear a lot more about Makia Green, her political director. The New York Post, which has recently discovered JLG’s utility as a lefty bogeyman, dug up old Green posts where they praised Luigi Mangioni, the man accused of shooting down a health-insurance executive. Green founded Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, the activist group that on Monday blasted candidate Brooke Pinto for holding a party at a hotel that once hosted defense contractors.

What To Do