The three leading D.C. mayoral candidates fought over how to reduce crime and lower housing costs during a televised in-person debate Wednesday night, less than three weeks before the June 21 Democratic primary and as more than 10,000 voters have already returned their mail ballots.

The debate — which was hosted by Georgetown University and Fox 5 — started with a series of questions on crime and public safety, which has emerged as one of the leading issues on voters’ minds. As of this week, homicides are running 7% above where they were at the same time last year, and violent crime overall is up 17%, according to MPD data.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said no singular solution could bring down violent crime, adding that her administration has worked to fund multiple approaches, including violence interruption. But she also tried to draw a quick contrast with her challengers, saying only she has pushed to increase the number of police officers while her opponents were aligning with progressive calls to “defund” the police.

“I’m going to make the tough calls when it comes to violent crime, including making sure we have the police that we need. We have faced two years of defunding our police force,” she said. “We know what [Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large) and Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8)] chose to do was serve ideology and not the residents of the District of Columbia and making sure that we have the police officers that we need.”

Robert White said the allegations of the council having defunded the police are a “dog whistle.” (They are also of questionable accuracy: in 2020 both Bowser and the council took funding from MPD, but it has since increased.) He added that while Bowser has put money into various programs, those programs have not been properly coordinated.

“The mayor has told you that she has a plan, but throwing money at everything is not a plan,” he said.

Trayon White similarly criticized Bowser for only grudgingly building up the city’s violence interruption efforts, and said addressing rising crime would take a whole-of-government approach that he would champion.

“My plan is not just to increase the police, but create wraparound services, create better housing, mental health services, substance abuse, address the whole community, not just locking people up,” he said. “We need the police, but police is not the end-all solution.”

Where that perspective diverged, though, came from a question about the council’s ongoing plan to pull police out of D.C. schools gradually through 2025. Robert White voted for it and said he continues to support the plan — he said students had asked for police to be removed. Bowser and Trayon White argued against it. “Our schools have become more violent,” Trayon White said.

Both lawmakers said violent crime, especially amongst young people, was linked to poor outcomes in schools. Robert White said Bowser had failed to ensure that additional funding for at-risk students actually got to them, while Trayon White said there has been a “strategic disinvestment” in programming inside and outside of schools for youth.

“I refuse to accept that it is okay that 60% of Black and brown students are behind grade level. That is not good enough,” said Robert White. “So here’s what I’m going to do differently. I’m going to move with a sense of urgency in anybody in our education system who doesn’t have a sense of urgency has to go.”

Bowser pushed back, quickly pivoting to an attack line she has deployed at past debates: her opponents want to get rid of the system of mayoral control of schools that has been in place since 2008. (Both lawmakers have said they open to revisiting mayoral control by giving other agencies and bodies more independence and authority.)

“One thing we have not done in this city, thanks to our taxpayers, is underfunded education,” she said. “The reason why our taxpayers trust us to do it is because we have mayoral accountability and council oversight.”

Similar disagreements continued on the issue of affordable housing. Bowser touted her administration’s spending of more than $1 billion to build and preserve affordable housing, saying there is no equal in any other U.S. city. But Trayon White said much of the housing wasn’t affordable for low-income Black residents, and contended that the Housing Production Trust Fund — the city’s main tool for financing housing construction — had become a “slush fund for developers.” He pledged to rethink how the money is used, including quickly repairing dilapidated and abandoned properties.

Robert White similarly accused Bowser of folding to the interests of developers. “We have spent a lot of money but people haven’t seen the value,” he said. “I’m going to stand up to developers … if you want to be part of our community, you have to build the housing we need.”

White pledged to look at alternative tools like social housing and community land trusts, and said the mayor had delayed plans he proposed to consider converting vacant office buildings to residential.

But Bowser pushed back against the accusation that she was too friendly to developers, saying that they are a necessary partner in the construction of affordable housing.

“If somebody is telling you that they’re going to build housing and they’re not going to have developers and they’re not going to put public money [in], they’re not going to build any housing,” she said. “I have a record of building affordable housing and supporting quality development in all eight wards, and I’m the only one who can say that.”

The debate hit a passive-aggressive crescendo as the candidates sparred on housing and revitalizing downtown D.C., when Robert White asked to clarify details on his initiative to convert offices to residential space.

“I just wanted to clarify, in case you didn’t understand,” he told Bowser.

“The mayor understands,” she deadpanned. (Her campaign later shared the retort from her Twitter account.)

And Bowser returned to a habitual theme to lambast her challengers, saying that they have both served two terms on the council and have had years to implement ideas and initiatives they are now unveiling in their campaigns against her.

“The mayor proposes the budget and the council approves the budget,” she said. “So between the two of them … they have six budgets that they have could have funded any and all of their priorities.”

As the debate came to a close, Robert White again sought to distinguish himself by saying he’s the only candidate who opposes putting a stadium for the Washington Commanders at RFK. (“A stadium necessarily takes land that could be used for housing,” he said.) And Trayon White again pitched his plan to reduce traffic fines, calling the city’s extensive network of traffic cameras “predatory.”

While much of the debate again evidenced sharp differences between the three candidates, there were also brief moments of introspection that are largely lost in the heat of most political campaigns.

During a question on improving mental health service, Trayon White said he speaks with a therapist every week “to address the trauma that I’ve experienced as a young Black man burying 250 individuals right here in my community.” He also responded candidly to a question about regrets he has from his time in office.

“I’m very off-the-hip and sometimes it has cost me tremendously,” he said. (White has occasionally drawn controversy for some of his comments, including in 2018 when he repeated a conspiracy theory about a prominent Jewish family.) “And growing into a senior council member, I learned to be more thoughtful, innovative, and more have a leadership role.”

Bowser similarly took on that question, saying her “political regret” was her decision in 2018 to support a challenger to D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), a move she conceded was more personal than it should have been.

“My parents always taught me to stand up for myself and defend myself and to make sure people respect me,” she said. “And that led me to oppose a sitting councilmember in her reelection. And I don’t regret standing up and speaking up and defending myself and my administration, but I do regret that it got personal.”