On the campaign trail, she offered Washington, D.C., voters a menu of undiluted leftism. Including what she called subsidized or even free childcare, increased down-payment assistance for homebuyers, and community resources to reduce crime.

Lewis George’s looming ascension is expected to revive Trump’s scrutiny of the local government after months of intervening in its affairs. Bowser had settled into an uneasy truce with Trump, cooperating with his takeover of the district, a move that came with a heavy National Guard presence, last year. But Lewis George’s election could change that dynamic, and the president recently indicated he’ll ratchet up the federal government’s involvement if she wins.

When asked last week about the prospect of Lewis George winning, Trump told reporters he “wouldn’t like it.” 

“Maybe we take back Washington and run it on a federal basis,” he said at the White House. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not going to lose our businesses.”

Part of a nationwide big-city socialist wave

Lewis George has indicated she will work with Trump on select issues, but has called the district’s autonomy a “nonnegotiable” and has broadly said the same on protecting its “immigrant community and neighbors, our black youth.”

In one significant policy shift, Lewis George campaigned on repealing former Metropolitan Police Department chief Pamela Smith’s executive order directing her officers to cooperate with federal immigration authorities for individuals not in police custody.

“They can’t occupy the same space at the same time; thus conflict,” said Craig Shirley, a Ronald Reagan biographer and former Republican strategist. He further described Trump and Lewis George as two “ideologues” poised to clash.

While Darrell West, governance studies chairman at the Brookings Institution, predicted Trump would undermine the district’s power to govern itself.

“She will be a perfect foil in his fight against wokism,” West told the Washington Examiner. “She will find he has many ways to make her life difficult.”

Lewis George is set to join a group of big-city mayors who have ascended in urban politics over the last year. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani claimed the 2025 Democratic nomination by beating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then won the general election. Katie Wilson won an upset victory to lead Seattle last fall. In Los Angeles recently, Nithya Raman clinched a spot in the November runoff against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. All of them are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. 

Yet Washington, D.C., is different than those deep-blue cities because it’s only semiautonomous. This practically invites political friction with the Trump administration.

All Democratic presidential candidates have won overwhelmingly in Washington since the federal district got a vote in national elections through ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961. For several years in the late 1990s and into the early 21st century, congressional Republicans sought to use the district as a policy petri dish of sorts — among other things, to ban needle exchange programs, gun control efforts, and district-enacted laws to ease marijuana restrictions. President Bill Clinton’s veto pen spared some district laws, while congressional GOP lawmakers at times succeeded at blocking others.

Congress has the power to overturn Washington, D.C. laws — a fact that Trump put on clear display when he federalized its police force as part of a crackdown on crime. The National Guard personnel he deployed, meanwhile, are still patrolling the city’s streets.

Trump’s avid interest in DC’s appearance

Bowser found a middle ground with Trump, and he backed away from certain attempts at federalization, including the appointment of his own police chief. Bowser was one of his loudest critics during Trump’s first term, but changed course in his second, even meeting with the president-elect at his private Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida during the transition period.

Then came the dismantling of the Black Lives Matter street mural. Massive, 50-foot-tall, bright yellow letters had been painted directly on the asphalt, accompanied by the flag of Washington, D.C. The mural was commissioned by Bowser and painted by local artists and city workers on June 5, 2020, during the nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd.

Conservative critics and Republican lawmakers viewed the mural as politically divisive and an inappropriate use of public space. Congressional Republicans pressured local leadership, threatening to withhold millions in federal transportation funding unless the street was renamed and the mural was removed.

George Mason University political science professor Jeremy Mayer quipped that “Bowser didn’t make nice with Trump because she liked him.” 

“She did it because the president, particularly when Congress is dysfunctional and spineless, can do a lot of damage to D.C.,” Mayer told the Washington Examiner.

So far, Lewis George has emphasized investments in Union Station, a transit hub, as one possible area for common ground.

Trump has already taken a greater interest in the district than many of his predecessors, with last summer’s carjacking attack on Edward Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer, provoking his use of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 to declare a “crime emergency” and place the MPD under federal control for 30 days.

That was followed by the deployment of more than 1,000 National Guard members and other federal officers in Washington. Almost a year later, federal authorities last month asked for an additional 1,500 Guard members in the district, bringing the combined force to 5,000, as part of a summer surge for the country’s 250th birthday celebrations.

There are also Trump’s beautification efforts, from his $14 million resurfacing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall to his diversion of $90 million in national park fees to restore 22 monuments, statues, and fountains in the district. The president also wants to build a $100 million Triumphal Arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.

“A socialist mayor in our nation’s capital will almost certainly lead to President Trump keeping troops deployed, federalizing the D.C. Police, and pushing Congress to repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973,” Mike Davis, a Trump ally and Article III Project founder and president, told the Washington Examiner.

For Democratic strategist Jim Manley, until the district receives statehood, Lewis George is about to “find out the political reality that she is facing.” 

“That is that Trump is prepared to make life difficult for the residents of the district, which he can do because of the way the district is treated in the Constitution and because of D.C. Home Rule,” Manley told the Washington Examiner.

While the district’s mayor and council have governed it since 1973, Congress has the right to review and repeal its laws and budget, as well as appoint its judges, despite residents not having voting representation in federal politics.

Congress last used its right of review under President Joe Biden in 2023, the first time since 1991, over a crime bill that would have reduced penalties for violent crimes.

The last time the federal government took over Washington, D.C., was in 1995 under President Bill Clinton through the bipartisan District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act, introduced to counter scandal-ridden Mayor Marion Barry. 

To that end, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) introduced the Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident Act last February, which, if passed, would repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act and permit more federal control.

WHITE HOUSE POINTS OUT TWO FACTORS THAT CHANGED TRUMP’S MIND ON THE IRAN DEAL

When asked whether he would reintroduce that legislation if Lewis George is inaugurated next year, Lee told the Washington Examiner that “Washington is our nation’s capital, belonging to all Americans.”

“That is why the Constitution authorized Congress to govern it,” Lee said. “For any D.C. Mayor or city council to defy federal law and harbor criminals is a national disgrace. I have already introduced the BOWSER Act revoking home rule for DC, which becomes even more important if an anti-policing socialist tries to ruin the city.”

Naomi Lim (@naomitlim) is a White House reporter at the Washington Examiner.