Voters in Washington, DC, are casting ballots on Tuesday in primaries to select party candidates for mayor and the district's delegate to Congress, an election taking place as the capital undergoes major change under President Donald Trump's administration. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The primary marks the first time in a generation that DC residents will vote for a new mayor and delegate in the same election. In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, that party's winner is expected to come out on top in the general election in November.
The most prominent race is for mayor after Muriel Bowser, first elected in 2014, decided not to seek a fourth term. Democratic front-runners Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie are hoping to replace her.
The district's long-serving congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is also stepping down, with top candidates council member Brooke Pinto and at-large council member Robert White Jr. vying for the role. Republican Denise Rosado, an immigration lawyer, is running unopposed.
The primary will include ranked-choice voting for the first time, which DC election officials have warned could delay results for days.
Central to all the campaigns has been the city's fraught relationship with the Trump administration and the federal government. The city has limited autonomy, and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the DC Council. That autonomy has been further squeezed under Trump, who launched a federal law enforcement surge last summer and sent in the National Guard for an ongoing, open-ended deployment. Trump's efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of jobs.