Washington DC’s Mayor Muriel Bowser will not seek a fourth term, she announced on social media Tuesday afternoon.
“It was time for me to pass the baton on to the next set of leaders who are going to take our city to the next level,” she told NBC News in an interview the same day.
Bowser has been the mayor of Washington DC since 2015. Her tenure saw the city hit multidecade highs in major crimes, including murders and carjackings, although violent crime has declined significantly since its peak in 2023.
Bowser also struggled to find a politically acceptable response to President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants and reduce crime in DC by surging in National Guard troops. She has largely cooperated with the president and spoken well of the troops’ effects on the city’s safety. She managed to maintain DC’s status as a sanctuary city during Trump’s first term, but backed down this year after he threatened to revoke the capital’s home rule if the DC police did not cooperate with ICE officers on deportations.
“I think I could be a four-term mayor,” Bowser told reporters, “but I think most Washingtonians, they don’t, they aren’t, they don’t kind of approach the future with fear of that. So, I think they are confident in their decision to select the right mayor.”
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