Muriel Bowser

Muriel Elizabeth Bowser (born August 2, 1972) is an American politician who has served as the mayor of the District of Columbia since 2015.

The youngest of six children of Joe and Joan Bowser, Bowser was born in Washington, and grew up in North Michigan Park in northeast D.C. In 1990, she graduated from Elizabeth Seton High School, a private all-girls Catholic high school located in Bladensburg, Maryland.

She received a college scholarship because of her above average grades.

Bowser graduated from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a bachelor's degree in history, and she graduated from the American University School of Public Affairs with a Masters in Public Policy.

According to Bowser, she never envisioned herself as an elected politician, but possibly an appointed agency administrator.

Elected to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in 2004, Bowser was elected to the council in a special election in 2007, to succeed Adrian Fenty, who had been elected mayor.

Bowser began her political career in 2004, running unopposed for the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC).

She represented district 4B09, which includes the neighborhood of Riggs Park.

Three individuals ran against her in the Democratic primary, namely: Baruti Akil Jahi, former president of the Shepherd Park Citizens Association; Malik Mendenhall-Johnson, then serving as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner of 4B04; and Paul E. Montague, who had been Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner of 4B07 before being recalled in 2004.

Both Jahi and Mendenhall-Johnson criticized Bowser, saying she was a rubber stamp for Mayor Fenty and that she was unconcerned with her constituents' needs.

No candidates' names were on the ballot for the Republican or D.C. Statehood Green primaries.

The Washington Post's editorial department endorsed Bowser's candidacy.

The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club also voted to endorse Bowser's reelection.

Bowser won the Democratic Party primary election, receiving 75 percent of votes.

Jahi received 19%, Montague received 3%, and Mendenhall-Johnson received 2%.

With no one else appearing on the subsequent general election ballot, Bowser won the general election with 97 percent of the vote.

She was unopposed again in 2006 when she ran for re-election.

Adrian Fenty, Member of the Council of the District of Columbia representing Ward 4, ran for Mayor of the District of Columbia.

Bowser was his campaign coordinator for Ward 4.

When Fenty was elected mayor in 2006, a special election was called to fill his council seat.

Bowser, among many others, announced her candidacy for it.

During a political forum with 17 of the 19 council candidates in attendance, Bowser was the only candidate present who supported Fenty's proposed takeover of the District public school system, saying that the school system needed to change.

When Fenty announced his support of Bowser, some critics said that, if elected, she would always vote as Fenty wished, ignoring the needs of her constituents.

Other critics took note of developers who had contributed to Bowser's campaign, claiming she would favor developers over her constituents.

While an ANC commissioner, Bowser had voted in favor of a zoning variance for a condominium development to be built by a developer who had contributed several hundred dollars to her campaign, which some critics derided as a conflict of interest.

Bowser maintained that she had supported the development project before running for Council.

The editorial page of The Washington Post favored Bowser in the election.

The local councils of the AFL–CIO, Service Employees International Union, and the Fraternal Order of Police also endorsed Bowser in the election, but the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees endorsed her opponent, Michael A. Brown.

Bowser won the special election with 40% of the vote.

A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented the 4th ward as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2015.

She is the second female mayor of the District of Columbia after Sharon Pratt, and the first woman to be reelected to that position.

She was reelected in 2008 and 2012 and ran for mayor in the 2014 election.

She defeated incumbent mayor Vincent C. Gray in the Democratic primary and won the general election against three independent and two minor party candidates with 55% of the vote.

In 2008, Bowser announced her reelection campaign for the council.

In 2011, Bowser was appointed to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority board of governors, a position she held until 2015.

Bowser ran for reelection in 2012.

Bowser said she would not turn down donations from corporations.

Candidate Max Skolnik criticized Bowser for receiving campaign contributions from developers, corporate bundlers, and lobbyists, saying that Bowser would favor the interests of these corporate donors.

Bowser said she was not in favor of banning corporations from making political donations altogether, saying that doing so would make it more difficult to track where campaign donations come from.

In 2018, Bowser won a second term with 76.4% of the vote, then a third term in 2022 with 74.6% of the vote.