Allen says the city’s leadership has “lost the ambition” — and Lewis George offers a bolder path forward. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc/Getty Images)
Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen (D) is endorsing Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George (D) in the D.C. mayoral primary, praising her as a decisive leader who can restore a sense of ambition to the city.
Allen plans to announce his endorsement Monday. He said in an interview that his backing of Lewis George comes down to a desire for a more assertive approach — arguing that over the last several years, the city’s leadership has “lost the ambition.”
“Just constantly thinking about how you nibble on the edges of a problem, it’s clearly not working for us, it’s not making D.C. more affordable,” Allen said. “I want us to be a city that’s proud: leading, innovating and being ambitious. I don’t know why we think it’s okay not to be.”
In a competitive primary where voter attention remains limited, the backing of an established, longtime lawmaker helps send a clear signal to undecided voters that Lewis George’s campaign has institutional support.
Allen’s endorsement adds to a growing list that solidifies Lewis George’s backing from the progressive wing of the D.C. Council. She has already secured support from At-Large Council member Robert White Jr., Ward 1 Council member Brianne K. Nadeau and former D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine.
Her top rival in the Democratic primary, former Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie, has been endorsed by Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D), former Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh, former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt and the Associated Builders and Contractors of Metro Washington, among others.
The candidates’ different approaches can be seen in their housing goals. Lewis George is pushing a lofty target of 72,000 new units. McDuffie has dismissed that number as unrealistic, countering with a more modest pitch: build 12,000 new units and preserve 20,000 more by 2030.
"Twelve thousand is not part of a bold way to think about how we grow our city," said Allen, who likened Lewis George’s vision to former Mayor Anthony Williams’s historic — and at the time, controversial — push to add 100,000 new residents to the District.
"People said, 'That’s unrealistic, we shouldn’t think and dream that big,'" recalled Allen. “And guess what? We added 100,000 new residents, and by adding more housing and more residents, we diversified our tax base. We became a growing city.”
A centerpiece of Lewis George’s platform is achieving universal childcare, potentially funded by a proposed Business Activity Tax. Supporters, including Allen, frame it as a restructuring of the city’s business taxes — aimed at capturing more revenue from large firms while reducing the burden on smaller, local businesses.
Finding that funding for childcare, Allen noted, is paramount for voters across his ward and the District. “When my kids were in childcare, it was as if we were carrying a second mortgage,” he said. “It made everything more expensive and harder than it needed to be.”
Allen said that while he and Lewis George won’t agree on everything, she possesses a rare political trait behind closed doors: she engages directly with her detractors.
“She is the only candidate that is curious, expands the circle of people she listens to and is also a decisive leader,” Allen said. “And those are the qualities that you need to have a successful mayor and executive.”
Lewis George is also being backed by a slate of local labor unions. On Friday, her campaign announced additional endorsements from the American Postal Workers Union, the D.C. Nurses Association and AFSCME District Council 20 — the city’s largest public-sector union.
In recent weeks, McDuffie has gradually fleshed out his campaign platform — including a plan unveiled last Thursday called “Every Child, Every Step,” focused on expanding access to child care and creating targeted programming for students at all grade levels.
