A $1.1 billion budget gap, a wide-open mayoral race, and a new way of voting are about to change how decisions get made in the District. Here is what we are watching, and what your team should be doing now.
Washington has not seen a year like this in more than a decade. The District is closing the books on the longest mayoralty since Marion Barry, absorbing real federal workforce losses, and rolling out ranked choice voting for the first time. Each of those would be a story on its own. Together, they are reshaping who holds power in the District and what that power can pay for.
If your organization operates in the DMV, this is not a year to coast on existing relationships. The people you know on the DC Council may not be there in January. The agency contacts you have built over five years may be reporting to a deputy mayor who has not been named yet. And the budget environment your strategic plan was built on has tightened.
Here is the landscape, the moves we expect, and the questions every executive director, GR lead, and CEO should be asking right now.
The Budget: Smaller, Sharper, and Already Contested
On April 10, Mayor Bowser presented her final budget to the Council. The $12.7 billion FY2027 operating proposal, branded “Grow DC,” is 3.3 percent smaller than the revised FY2026 budget. It closes a $1.1 billion budget gap driven by slower revenue growth, federal workforce cuts, and rising operational costs in Medicaid (the joint federal and state health insurance program for lower income residents), overtime, and rent.
Half of all District spending stays with public education and human services. The bigger story for organizations sits in the choices around the edges, where the administration signaled what it wants the next mayor to inherit:
- Health care. Medicaid and DC Healthcare Alliance coverage (the District’s locally funded health insurance program for residents who do not qualify for Medicaid) are protected, with $9 million added for new dental and vision benefits and $25 million to acquire a third bridge housing site for people transitioning out of homelessness.
- Technology. $61 million over six years for IT and cybersecurity upgrades across DC government, plus continued investment in digital licenses and identity infrastructure.
- Public safety capital. $350 million over six years for fire and EMS apparatus, $27 million for a new fire station at the RFK campus, and $75 million toward a new DC Jail public-private partnership.
- Economic development. The FY27 Budget Support Act (the policy bill that includes statutory changes that are necessary to implement the budget) introduces a new tax abatement of up to 20 years for redevelopment of former federally owned properties, alongside a workforce-housing abatement aimed at projects between 80 and 100 percent of median family income.
Not everything in the proposal is going to survive Council review. Firefighters are already pushing back on the decision to forgo funding for a new collective bargaining agreement, a roughly $127 million savings. Childcare advocates are organizing around proposed cuts to the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund. Expect those fights to dominate the May and early-June hearings.
What we are watching: the line items most likely to move are the ones with organized constituencies and a Councilmember who needs a primary win. Pay Equity, FEMS bargaining, and the Bridge Housing acquisition are at the top of that list. The Council passes the final budget in June. Your window to weigh in is now.
The Election: An Open Mayoralty and a New Voting System
Mayor Bowser announced in November 2025 that she would not seek a fourth term, opening the first competitive mayoral race since 2014. Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George and former At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who resigned from the Council earlier this year to run, are widely viewed as the frontrunners. Former Councilmember Vincent Orange and a crowded field of additional candidates round out the Democratic primary.
The race for the District’s non-voting seat in the U.S. House is just as wide open. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton announced her retirement in January after 35 years in the role, prompting Councilmembers Robert White and Brooke Pinto, along with Democratic strategist Kinney Zalesne, to enter what is now one of the most expensive Delegate races in District history. Because DC is not a state, its representative in Congress can participate in committee work but cannot cast votes on the House floor.
Then there is the mechanics. The June 16 primary will be the first DC election conducted under ranked choice voting, a system DC voters approved in 2024 with nearly 73 percent support. Under ranked choice voting, voters will rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority on the first round, the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated and second-choice votes redistribute to the remaining candidates. The system runs in any race with three or more candidates.
Here is the part most coverage is missing. RCV does not just “reward coalition-building” in the abstract. It changes who matters. Traditional kingmakers — labor endorsements, ANC slate cards, ward-level political clubs — were built for a system where you only had to win first-choice votes. Under RCV, second-choice support from voters who never planned to back you is what closes the gap. That makes endorsements from less-aligned but broadly trusted institutions, like advocacy groups, neighborhood associations and faith leaders, disproportionately valuable. It also raises the cost of going negative, because you need your opponent’s voters to put you second.
For organizations whose advocacy depends on knowing where a candidate will land in a runoff, that is a meaningful shift. The candidate you once dismissed as a long shot may end up casting the deciding vote on your issue.
Where Budget Meets Politics
The thing to understand is that these two stories are not running in parallel. They are pulling on the same rope.
Whoever wins in November takes office in January 2027 and immediately inherits a $1.1 billion gap, a workforce that has lost institutional memory across multiple agencies, and a Council with at least three new members. The campaign promises being made right now on housing, public safety, and schools will land on a balance sheet that does not have room for all of them.
That creates two practical openings for organizations:
- Tie your asks to existing FY27 line items. New leaders will be looking for early wins they can claim without finding new money. If your priority can be framed as protecting or expanding something the Mayor already proposed, you start the conversation in a much better position.
- Build relationships across the field, not just with the frontrunner. RCV makes the eventual winner’s coalition wider than the candidate they ran as. The Councilmember who finishes third in the primary may still drive the policy you care about for the next two years.
A Practical Playbook for the Next Six Months
If you are leading government affairs, public affairs, or organizational strategy in the DMV, here is what we would have you do between now and the end of 2026:
- Audit your map. List every elected official, agency head, and senior staffer your work depends on. Mark which ones are leaving, running for something else, or term-limited. Most organizations are surprised by how exposed they are.
- Pick three FY27 budget priorities and weigh in before June. The Council moves to final votes that month. Public testimony, written comment, and direct outreach all matter more right now than at the start of the fiscal year October 1.
- Get to know the candidates, not just the favorite. Attend meet and greets. Use the opportunity to listen to priorities and initiatives, not to pitch. Under RCV, your goal is to be the organization every campaign feels comfortable working with later.
- Draft your transition memo now. By February, you should have a one-page document ready to hand to a new administration that explains who you are, what you do in the District, and the one or two things you would like to see in the first 100 days.
How We Help
American Management Corporation has spent decades helping corporate, nonprofit, and government clients translate moments like this into outcomes. Our team has worked across every Council and every mayoralty since the Williams administration. We know which staffers will move with which candidates, which agencies are about to be reorganized, and which budget fights are real versus theater.
If your team is mapping its strategy for the rest of 2026, we would welcome a conversation. Reach out and we will share the AMC Transition Brief, our internal read on the budget, the field, and the moves we expect over the next six months.
