 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Elections in the District of Columbia |
|---|
 |
The 2026 Washington, D.C. mayoral election will be held on November 8, 2026, to elect the mayor of Washington, D.C.. Incumbent mayor Muriel Bowser is serving her third term and is eligible for re-election. [1]
Carol Schwartz is an American politician and Perennial candidate from Washington, D.C., who served as a Republican at-large member on the Council of the District of Columbia from 1985 to 1989 and again from 1997 to 2009. A five-time perennial candidate for mayor, she is the only Republican nominee since the restoration of home rule to garner more than 30 percent of the vote. She announced her fifth campaign for mayor on June 9, 2014 finishing behind Muriel Bowser and David Catania. In 2015, she was appointed to the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability by Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Vincent Condol Gray is an American politician who has served on the Council of the District of Columbia for Ward 7 since 2017. He was the mayor of the District of Columbia from 2011 to 2015.
Michael Arrington Brown is an American politician in Washington, D.C. In 2008, he was elected an at-large member of the Council of the District of Columbia and served one four-year term.
Muriel Elizabeth Bowser is an American politician who has been serving as the 8th and current Mayor of the District of Columbia since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented the 4th ward as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2015. She is the second female mayor of the District of Columbia after Sharon Pratt, and the first woman to be reelected to that position.
On November 2, 2010, Washington, D.C., held an election for its mayor. The primary elections occurred on September 14. Vincent Gray won the general election by a wide margin, although many voters wrote in incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty, whom Gray defeated in the primary.
The mayor of the District of Columbia is the head of the executive branch of the government of the District of Columbia. The mayor has the duty to enforce district laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the D.C. Council. In addition, the mayor oversees all district services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and the district public school system. The mayor's office oversees an annual district budget of $8.8 billion. The mayor's executive office is located in the John A. Wilson Building in Downtown Washington, D.C. The mayor appoints several officers, including the deputy mayors for Education and Planning & Economic Development, the district administrator, the chancellor of the district's public schools, and the department heads of the district agencies.
On November 4, 2014, Washington, D.C., held an election for its mayor, concurrently with U.S. Senate elections in various states, U.S. House elections, and various state and local elections.
The 2014 District of Columbia Attorney General election was held on November 4, 2014, to elect the Attorney General of Washington, D.C., concurrently with elections to the United States Senate in various states and elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various state and local elections.
Elissa Silverman is an American politician and reporter from Washington, D.C., the United States capital. She served as an independent at-large member of the Council of the District of Columbia from 2015 to 2023. Before 2015, she was a journalist at The Washington Post and Washington City Paper covering D.C. politics, and a policy analyst at the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. She was re-elected in November 2018 for a four-year term, but lost her re-election bid in 2022.
Brandon Tristan Todd is a lobbyist for Washington Gas and a former American politician who represented Ward 4 on the Council of the District of Columbia. Todd previously worked in the Council office of Muriel Bowser and in various campaign positions during her successful campaign for Mayor of the District of Columbia. Todd won a special election in May 2015, succeeding Muriel Bowser, who was elected as mayor. After serving one full term on the council, Todd lost the 2020 Democratic primary to Janeese Lewis George.
LaRuby Zinea May is an American politician and African American lawyer who formerly represented Ward 8 on the Council of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. She won the Ward 8 special election on May 10, 2015, succeeding Marion Barry, who died in office on November 23, 2014. May, who was sworn into office on May 14, 2015, served out the remainder of Barry's term, which ended on December 31, 2016. During her first council term, she was active on the issues of crime and violence, marijuana policy, assisted suicide, and improvements to Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. She criticized the city's emergency medical services department, opposed the creation of a public electrical utility, and applauded the construction of a sports arena in her ward. She was one of the few council members to support the mayor during the FreshPAC scandal, and although she asked Congress to end its school voucher program she also supported a political action committee which supports an expanded voucher and charter school program in the District. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Trayon White is an American politician from Washington, D.C. A member of the Democratic Party, he has represented Ward 8 on the Council of the District of Columbia since 2017. He was first elected to the council in 2016 in his second attempt for the position, which had been held by former mayor Marion Barry prior to his death.
Robert C. White Jr. is an American attorney and politician who has served on the Council of the District of Columbia since 2016.
On November 6, 2018, Washington, D.C., held an election for its mayor. Incumbent Democrat Muriel Bowser won re-election, becoming the first Mayor to do so for Washington, D.C., since Anthony A. Williams won a second term in 2002.
Calvin H. Gurley is an accountant and perennial candidate living in Washington, D.C.
On November 8, 2022, Washington, D.C., held an election for its mayor. Incumbent Democrat Muriel Bowser was elected to a third term. The Republican nominee, Stacia Hall, received 2,368 votes in the primary, and independent candidate Rodney "Red" Grant garnered 4,700 signatures to gain ballot access. Both appeared on the general election ballot along with Libertarian Party candidate Dennis Sobin. D.C. Statehood Green Party nominee Corren Brown did not appear on the general election ballot.
On November 8, 2022, a general election was held for the Council of the District of Columbia. Elections were held in four ward districts as well as for chairperson of the council and two at-large seats. Democrats remained in control of the council, electing six out of the seven positions that were on the ballot. Independent Kenyan McDuffin, formerly the Democratic councilperson for Ward 5, was also elected.
The 2026 United States elections are scheduled to be held, in large part, on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. In this U.S. midterm election, which will occur during the second term of President Donald Trump, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate will be contested to determine the 120th United States Congress. 39 state and territorial U.S. gubernatorial elections, as well as numerous state and local elections, will also be contested.
The 2024 Council of the District of Columbia election took on November 5, 2024, to elect members to six seats on the city council. The primary took place on June 4, 2024.
Initiative 83 was a voter-approved ballot initiative in Washington, D.C., that would permit ranked-choice voting and open the primary elections to independent voters. If passed, more than 80,000 voters registered as “unaffiliated” with a political party will be able to participate in primaries, which are closed to those voters. Beginning in 2026, elections for all public offices, except political party offices, would be held using ranked choice voting.