LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Whoever eventually becomes mayor of Washington, D.C., will have to decide how to approach President Trump, who is more focused than ever on the city's affairs. Here to explain more is WAMU's senior D.C. politics reporter Alex Koma. He's outside a voting center right now. Good morning, Alex.
ALEX KOMA, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: What's it looking like out there?
KOMA: Yeah. I'm out here in northeast D.C. at a polling place where polls opened at 7 a.m. And energy is high for these very consequential races.
FADEL: So set the stage for us. What's at stake in this race, and who's running?
KOMA: Yeah. So our current mayor, Muriel Bowser, has been in office for the last 12 years. But she opted not to run for another term, and that's opened the door for a slew of candidates jumping into the all-important Democratic primary here in a very deep blue city. Polls show two with a clear lead. That'd be current D.C. council member Janeese Lewis George and former council member Kenyan McDuffie.
The pair agrees on some things, particularly that the next mayor needs to do more to stand up to Trump than Bowser did. Trump flooded the city with ICE agents last summer, and that's generated a huge backlash. Both candidates want our local police to stop working with D.C. entirely. But they do differ sharply on ideology.
FADEL: What are the top issues for each candidate?
KOMA: Yeah, Lewis George is pitching new spending on things like child care and housing. But she does fundamentally want voters to believe government can do more than it does now.
JANEESE LEWIS GEORGE: Mr. McDuffie has spent time talking about what I can't do. And I, meanwhile, am talking to voters about how we're going to deal with this affordability crisis, how we're going to address housing issues and child care and utilities.
KOMA: Now, McDuffie, by contrast, says many of her plans are unrealistic, preferring more modest, technocratic changes aimed at luring in more businesses as the local economy slows due to federal layoff. The city lost about 22,000 government jobs alone last year by some estimates, not to mention associated cuts to federal contractors.
KENYAN MCDUFFIE: I don't just run on rhetoric. I'm going to be honest with residents and make sure that we deliver a city that is safer, that is more affordable.
KOMA: Now, as her answer sort of suggests, Lewis George has generally stressed affordability as her top issue, while McDuffie closed his campaign talking about public safety.
FADEL: How has crime played out in the race?
KOMA: Yeah, I mean, violent crime has fallen sharply in the city in recent years. But Trump still used crime as justification for sending the National Guard into D.C. and temporarily seizing control of the city's police department last summer. And he said last week he could seek to take over D.C. if Lewis George wins.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I wouldn't like it. And maybe we take back Washington, run it on the federal basis. We won't put up with it. We're not going to lose our businesses. By the way, Washington now is a safe, beautiful place.
KOMA: Now, he can't do that unilaterally without Congress. But he could intervene in the city's affairs in all sorts of ways. D.C., of course, isn't a state, and it doesn't have voting representation in Congress. So he has latitude here. And that has become a flash point in the race. Both Lewis George and McDuffie have backgrounds as police reformers and hold similar views on a lot of these issues. But McDuffie recently has been arguing that Lewis George is too soft on crime, and that could invite further meddling from Trump and the federal government.
FADEL: So how is this all playing out with voters?
KOMA: Yeah, most political observers consider Lewis George the favorite. A recent Washington Post poll had her up by double digits. But there are a lot of undecided voters still. Markus Batchelor, an organizer in southeast D.C., says his neighbors may be angry about Trump but unwilling to back the major changes she's embraced.
MARKUS BATCHELOR: Folks are just trying to figure out which vision for the future is workable in an environment that seems very uncertain but also very ripe for change.
KOMA: An added wrinkle, of course, is the city is using ranked choice voting for the first time, letting voters rank candidates in order of preference instead of picking just one.
FADEL: That's senior D.C. politics reporter Alex Koma with WAMU. Thanks, Alex.
KOMA: Thank you.
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