D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser won’t run for reelection, ending months of speculation over whether she would seek a fourth term. She gave News4 an in-depth interview on her decision.
“It was time for me to pass the baton onto the next set of leaders who are going to take our city to the next level,” the mayor said in an interview with News4 at her home.
Bowser said she made the decision for her family. In the interview, she said now is the time to do something else while she still has a lot of energy, vigor and great ideas.
“It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do – to walk away from a job I love. But I know we’ve accomplished the things I’ve set out to do,” Bowser said.
In a message Bowser posted on social media Tuesday afternoon, she wrote: “It has been the honor of my life to be your Mayor. Together, we have built a legacy of success of which I am intensely proud.”
Her message continued: “With a grateful heart, I am announcing that I will not seek a fourth term.”
“For the next 12 months, let’s run through the tape and keep winning for DC,” her message concluded.
Bowser told News4 she remains confident she would win reelection if she ran again.
“I’ve never lost an election,” Bowser said.
The mayor has spent the past year trying to strike a balance between her constituents and the Trump administration, trying to avoid a clash with the president, who has threatened to overturn the District’s Home Rule. That got even trickier with the federal surge of law enforcement in the District.
But when asked Monday evening whether residents should be concerned about President Donald Trump following through on his threats under a different mayor, Bowser said, “I believe that I am putting the District in the best possible place.”
When asked whether she gave the White House a heads up about her decision not to run again, Bowser told us: “I serve the residents of the District of Columbia. So, they’ll be the first to know.”
Bowser’s third term also is notable for two major sports deals.
The agreement to bring the Washington Commanders home to D.C. and redevelop the old RFK Stadium campus was a significant accomplishment for the mayor’s office – and the relationship warranted a heads up to the team about Bowser’s future plans. She said she made it clear in her first conversation with the Commanders that she would be getting out.
In addition, after Ted Leonsis’ plan to move the Washington Capitals and Wizards out of Capital One Arena and into Alexandria, Virginia, were rejected by the commonwealth, Bowser made a deal to keep the teams in D.C. and remodel the arena as she looked for a comeback from the downtown doldrums of the pandemic.
Bowser has served as D.C.’s mayor for more than a decade. Formerly the D.C. councilmember representing Ward 4, she was elected mayor in 2014 and took office in early 2015.
She’s now heading into the final year of her third term, only the second mayor in D.C. history, after Marion Barry, to serve three consecutive terms.
Bowser navigated the District through the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial reckoning of 2020.
Bowser faced criticism over her handling of Trump’s takeover of D.C. police and the federal surge in the District. She said she was grateful for the additional law enforcement and that it helped drive down crime in the city, while acknowledging that some people lived in anxiety because of the fear of ICE.
When a federal judge ruled that the National Guard’s deployment in D.C. was unlawful in November, Bowser said it was a move “in the right direction.”
She had been expected to announce over the summer whether she would seek a fourth term, but major events such as the announcement of the Commanders’ planned return to D.C. and the federal surge caused Bowser to delay her decision.
In that void, other names started to emerge as possible candidates. D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie previously told News4 they were thinking about running.
“Nobody has to wait on me to make any decision,” Bowser said in October when News4 asked whether she would run again. “… I’ve run for a long time, a number of times, and my process is always the same. If I want, I tell voters what I’m going to do when I know what I’m going to do and I’m ready to tell voters. And that will be my process this time.”
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