Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has announced she will not run for a fourth term, bringing an end to a decade-long tenure shaped by both economic progress and, most recently, a year of intense friction with the federal government. Her decision comes after months of speculation and follows a period defined by unprecedented federal intervention in the city’s policing, budgeting and governance.
Bowser delivered the announcement in a social-media video rather than at a live event, signalling a controlled exit rather than a campaign launch. While she avoided naming President Donald Trump directly, she urged Washingtonians to “stand tall against bullies who threaten our very autonomy,” framing the defence of the city’s Home Rule authority as a continuing struggle that will outlast her time in office. She credited residents with helping transform the capital through her three terms since 2015.
Her final year in office has been the most politically volatile. In August, Trump imposed an emergency order federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department and deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to the city under what the White House termed a crime-reduction operation. Although crime rates later fell, residents and councillors accused the administration of exaggerating the threat and using the city as a political stage. Federal officers and Guard units from multiple states remain in the capital as legal disputes continue.
Bowser found herself under pressure from both directions — criticized by the administration when she opposed the Guard deployment and criticized locally for not rejecting federal intervention forcefully enough. Activists and several council members charged she had failed to protect Washington’s limited self-governing powers, while Trump has publicly celebrated the federal intervention as a model for other major cities.
Legal battles have intensified alongside political tensions. On November 20, a federal judge ruled the National Guard deployment unlawful and ordered it to end, even as the district — led by its attorney general — continues to challenge other elements of the federal surge. Immigration-rights organizations are also litigating federal enforcement operations carried out in the city, which Bowser has repeatedly refused to support at the local level.
Simultaneously, the District has spent the past year navigating nearly $1 billion in stalled funding tied up in congressional budget disputes, and city agencies have undergone steep staffing reductions linked to the federal Department of Government Efficiency’s nationwide cuts.
With Bowser stepping aside, Washington now enters a new and uncertain political phase. The election to replace her is likely to centre on crime, Home Rule, and the city’s relationship with the White House — issues that have defined her final year and will continue to determine the balance of power between the nation’s capital and the federal government that sits at its core.
