Michiganders and Alaskans may have still been biting their nails, but DC Democrats didn’t have to wait long to celebrate on election night.
Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George, whose general election win was a fait accompli, addressed a jubilant crowd at her victory party at Sycamore & Oak in Ward 8 at around 10 PM.
After thanking her volunteers, labor movement supporters, the DSA, and her family, she reiterated her campaign promises to make childcare affordable, expand community solar, eliminate rats, cut red tape for small businesses, defend immigrants, and win DC statehood.
“For too long we have asked for a DC we can all afford and we got excuses,” Lewis George said. “Again and again we were told: ‘government doesn’t work like that.’ ‘That’s impossible.’ But to paraphrase James Baldwin, impossible is the least we can demand. Because the history of this city, our people, testifies to nothing less than perpetual achievement of the impossible.”
She brought up the resilience of U Street’s Black Broadway during the Jim Crow era; the movement for home rule, and most of the mayors who came before her: Walter Washington, Marion Barry, Anthony Williams, Vince Gray, and Muriel Bowser (no mention of Sharon Pratt or Adrian Fenty).
And JLG acknowledged her agenda will face serious threats and roadblocks. “There will always be another fight y’all, and another campaign,” she said.
As she spoke, many in the crowd stared, enraptured, at flatscreens that showed a more and more stunning wipeout for Republicans. They whooped as NBC called the Senate races in Texas and Kansas. DC and the Lewis George agenda will surely have more allies in Congress next year.
“Our country is navigating a defining season in its history as working class people fight to afford to live and prove that democracy works when we put people first,” Lewis George said.
The mayor-elect led the crowd in a final chant of “Free DC” before the go-go started cranking and she picked her way toward the exit through an eager crowd of fans and reporters.
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
