Housing Policy

Pick Your YIMBY

The D.C. mayoral race offers two leading candidates who are saying a lot of the right things about housing supply.

Christian Britschgi | 6.16.2026 3:30 PM

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(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. 

It's election day here in D.C., so our lead story looks at the district's mayoral race, where the two leading candidates both talk a good game on building more housing, but also have some anti-supply skeletons in their closets. 

Additionally, the newsletter includes stories on:

In the D.C. Mayor's Race, Socialist Democrats and Liberal Democrats Try To Out-YIMBY Each Other

Today, Washington, D.C., voters head to the polls to vote in their respective party primaries. 

Given how blue the district is, the Democratic primary might as well be the general election. Most eyes are on the mayoral contest that will pick the likely successor to retiring, three-term Mayor Muriel Bowser. 

Rent Free Newsletter by Christian Britschgi. Get more of Christian's urban regulation, development, and zoning coverage.

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The most recent polling shows that D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George has a commanding lead over former councilmember Kenyan McDuffie. 

Lewis George is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, who is running to the left of McDuffie, a former councilmember who's generally seen as the status quo successor to Bowser. 

That puts plenty of distance between the two candidates on issues of taxation and public safety. On housing, McDuffie and Lewis George are remarkably aligned. 

If you scan their housing platforms, both talk about the need to cut entitlement times, build more housing near transit, allow more "missing middle" homes in existing neighborhoods, reduce minimum parking requirements, and pass a more aggressive comprehensive plan. 

That's driven a split within the district's wider-tent housing-supply movement that wants to see D.C. build its way to being a more affordable city. 

The local D.C. YIMBY chapter and the city's........

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