Weeks before either candidate entered D.C.’s mayoral sweepstakes, Kenyan McDuffie and Janeese Lewis George sat down together over coffee at Lost Sock Roasters in Takoma. The private meeting, Lewis George later recounted, was intended to set a civil tone for a high-stakes race.
“It was important for us to both make our case to the District of Columbia,” Lewis George recalled in a December radio interview. “But also not make it about attacking one another.”
Their coffee shop pact didn’t survive the spring.