Washington DC mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie concedes primary to Janeese Lewis George

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington, D.C. mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie on Thursday conceded the Democratic primary race to Janeese Lewis George.

Although the official certification of the primary race is continuing, McDuffie said in a statement that “it is clear that the voters have chosen a different path.” The former member of the D.C. council said he had contacted Lewis George and congratulated her. He thanked his supporters and urged them to continue working for the city.

“The campaign may be over, but the work of building a safer, more affordable, more prosperous city continues.”

The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the race. Lewis George had a little less than 53% of the vote Thursday morning, which is just a few percentage points above the 50% threshold to avoid ranked choice voting.

The city is scheduled to release preliminary ranked choice voting results on Sunday. AP will call the race before then if it is clear that the ranked choice process will be avoided.

Lewis George has pledged to aggressively stand up to federal intervention into Washington, D.C.’s affairs, setting up a potential showdown with President Donald Trump over his administration’s moves to challenge the city’s limited autonomy.

If the results stand, Lewis George is likely to win November’s general election in the heavily Democratic city. The winner in the general election will replace Muriel Bowser, who decided not to run again after three terms.

Lewis George would join Robert White Jr., who won the Democratic primary for the district’s delegate to Congress, as the top local officials who likely will contend with the federal government’s intentions for the city. They each campaigned on a promise to take a harder line than their predecessors against the Trump administration’s moves on the district, including its deployment of the National Guard on an ongoing, open-ended mission meant to fight crime.

“As mayor, I will work with anyone who makes D.C. safer,” Lewis George told a crowd of cheering supporters Tuesday night, “but I will also stand up to Trump.”

Washington has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.

Trump further encroached on that autonomy last year when he briefly federalized the city’s police force and deployed an ongoing law enforcement surge that included the National Guard. His efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of people their jobs. And he has been reshaping the city by renovating storied landmarks and putting his name or image on buildings.

Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist and a member of the D.C. Council, has already come under fire from Trump, who last week threatened to place the city under federal control if she won.

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

Lewis George, 38, and a third generation Washingtonian, has vowed to overrule an executive order by the city’s police chief permitting local law enforcement to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Lewis George argued the order “hurt the trust of our community.”

She also pledged to use any levers available to her through the city’s home rule compact to resist what she called authoritarian infringements on the district’s local governance.

“We have legal tools we can use to fight back,” she told the AP in an interview before the vote. “And we know that when we have gone to court, we’ve won.”

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. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term, 89-year-old delegate to Congress, meanwhile, faced mounting concern from critics who said she wasn’t forcefully pushing back on the Trump administration’s moves against the city.