DC Mayor Avoids Donald Trump at His Hotel's Grand Opening Wednesday

WASHINGTON, DC — Donald Trump will be in D.C. Wednesday for the grand opening of his new hotel in the Old Post Office building, but don't expect Mayor Muriel Bowser to be in attendance.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is scheduled to be at Trump International Hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW for a grand opening and ribbon-cutting event on Oct. 26 at 11 a.m. Most business ribbon-cuttings of this size would be a photo op that a mayor wouldn't want to miss, but this is certainly a unique scenario: Bowser represents a city that is supporting Clinton over Trump at a rate of 77.9 percent to 13.8 percent, according to poll aggregation site FiveThirtyEight.

Trump is enormously unpopular in the city ever since starting his presidential campaign, and D.C. officials that had previously celebrated the arrival of the Trump International Hotel to downtown during a groundbreaking in 2014 have since distanced themselves from him. So although plenty of people will be in attendance during the ceremony, D.C. officials won't be among them, according to a Washingtonian report.

It's a bit of an awkward situation, as Bowser was at the groundbreaking ceremony, has received campaign contributions from Eric and Ivanka Trump and is usually at ribbon-cuttings. But Trump's political aspirations have certainly greatly changed his relationship with leaders in cities where he does business, and D.C. is no exception.

Image via Wikimedia user Gage Skidmore