11-08-2024 10:29am

Trump gains in Maryland: A trend or an aberration?

Catherine Hollingsworth Editor

This story first appeared on Maryland Matters, https://marylandmatters.org, and is republished here under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Josh Kurtz
Maryland Matters

November 7, 2024

No, Maryland is not about to flip from blue to red.

Vice President Kamala Harris carried the state by more than 20 points, and Democrats held the open U.S. Senate seat and were on the way to retaining their 7-1 advantage in the state’s U.S. House delegation — their top political priorities this year. They also waded into local school board elections for the first time in recent memory and fared pretty well.

But former President Donald Trump did get a higher percentage of the vote in Maryland this year than he did in 2020, just as he did in 48 of 50 states. And he appears to have improved his numbers in all 24 of the state’s jurisdictions.

In 2020, President Biden defeated Trump 65% to 32% in Maryland and carried Baltimore City and nine counties. This year, Harris is ahead 60% to 37% and carried eight jurisdictions — though the margin is expected to widen some after more mail-in ballots are tallied.

“Maryland is not an island, so those national trends are going to come here,” said Mileah Kromer, a pollster and director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Institute of Politics.

The question is whether any of the political developments that put Trump over the top will have any lasting effect nationally or in Maryland — whether there is anything for state Republicans to build on or for state Democrats to worry about.

Population centers like Baltimore City and Prince George’s and Montgomery counties are going to remain Democratic powerhouses, as they have been for decades. But politics can be a game of inches and micro trends, and Maryland does have some red and purple jurisdictions and swing-y legislative districts that political strategists fret over.

“Maryland is bigger than the core solid blue, geographically-centric counties that Maryland Democrats have come to rely on,” said Peter E. Perini Sr., a Hagerstown City Council member and former Washington County Democratic chair.

There have been no public exit polls on the Maryland vote this week, so it isn’t clear if some of the changes in the national electorate also occurred here. The Maryland State Board of Elections will release vote statistics from congressional districts and legislative districts in a few weeks.

Sometimes a single election can transform an area for a long time.

A prime example is in legislative District 6, centered in blue-collar Dundalk in Baltimore County. Going into the 2014 election, the district had a Democratic state senator and three Democratic delegates. But the delegation flipped to all-Republican in 2014, the same year former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) was elected in a major upset, and there isn’t much talk about Democrats trying to win the district back these days.

That development, in the view of many strategists, presaged Trump’s rise in 2016, and particularly his appeal to working-class voters. The trend accelerated in this year’s White House election, not just with working-class white voters, but with working-class Black and Latino men as well — a shift that some Democratic strategists find particularly concerning.

Paul Ellington, the former executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, said the GOP should learn from and build on that development, nationally and in the state. He said that Trump, in his unconventional way, listened to the concerns of working-class Americans and crafted a message on the economy and other issues that appealed to them.

“Kind of like how Hogan became ‘every man’ in Maryland and cut into traditional Democratic constituencies, Donald Trump has done that, particularly with what we would call labor, with working men and women,” Ellington said. “For too long, Republicans have carried the water for Chamber of Commerce types, when in fact, Chamber of Commerce types in Maryland probably split their donations between the two parties.”

Throughout the U.S. electorate, economic jitters proved to be a motivating issue, even if national statistics suggested that the economy was strong and getting stronger. That attitude also accrued to Trump’s benefit.

“The economy in front of them is the only economy that matters to voters,” Kromer said. “People care most about their groceries.”

But even if Trump’s political strength this election created some opportunities that Maryland Republicans might be able to take advantage of in discrete areas, the GOP writ large is not going to succeed in this state as a Trump party. The Senate race, with the decidedly anti-Trump Hogan as the Republican nominee, “was the only race that was competitive,” Kromer noted.

Clearly really smart people will do some autopsies and have some real work to do on how the Democratic Party communicates with the people. I do think there's definitely going to be some soul-searching.– Maryland Democratic Party Chair Ken Ulman

Maryland Democratic Party Chair Ken Ulman acknowledged that there will soon be conversations and analysis at the national level about what Democrats did wrong and what they need to do better.

“Clearly really smart people will do some autopsies and have some real work to do on how the Democratic Party communicates with the people,” he said. “I do think there’s definitely going to be some soul-searching.”

Some of that soul-searching will invariably turn on whether the party has become too “woke” and has moved too far to the left — a topic that will consume party leaders, activists and donors and political pundits for the foreseeable future, especially at the national level. Maryland Democrats will not be immune from that debate.

But Perini said voters in outlying areas of Maryland also want to see signs that their government cares about them, suggesting that recent cuts in state transportation funding, which will kill or stall key highway projects, could hurt Democrats with rural and suburban voters.

“You’ve got to understand how people feel when they take these projects off the books,” Perini said. “And how people feel is how they vote. We just need to give the people the credit for at least what they feel.”

Although April McClain Delaney, the Democratic nominee in the open-seat 6th District congressional race, appears to be headed to a narrow victory, and many party strategists worried about her fate, Perini predicted that her approach will resonate with voters in the ideologically, economically and geographically diverse district.

“I loved her line, ‘common sense and common ground,'” he said. “From day one, that was her approach to campaigning and I believe that will be her approach to governing. So there is a road map for campaigning in areas that aren’t deep blue.”

‘I think we’re an outlier’

The good news for hand-wringing Democrats is that the 2026 election cycle has already begun, which means scores of political operatives and activists will be getting ready.

“As far as I’m concerned, the 2026 election started [Wednesday],” Perini said. “And if people aren’t strategizing, they’re already a day late.”

Democrats can also take comfort knowing that the party that doesn’t control the White House often makes significant gains in the midterm elections — even though politics in the Trump era is more volatile and unpredictable than ever.

Ulman said he feels good about the infrastructure the state Democratic Party built for the 2024 election, and that it will carry over for 2026, when all statewide elected officials, all state legislators and most county officials will be on the ballot. While Democrats were caught by surprise when Hogan decided this spring to run for Senate, his high-profile candidacy forced them to put together a strong operation quickly, when presidential election years are usually sleepier in Maryland.

“Together, our coordinated campaign ran an active campaign in all 24 jurisdictions, and that’s really going to help us in 2026,” Ulman said.

The party leader also said that the issue environment in 2026 could work to Democrats’ benefit, especially if Trump moves to radically make over the federal government, which is a major employer and economic driver in Maryland.

“My gut feeling after doing politics for 30 years is ’26 will be a really good cycle for the Democrats,” Ulman said. “But you have to prepare for the worst. I do think Marylanders are going to have a lot to be frustrated about with our federal government.”

Adam Wood, the executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, did not respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on the 2024 election results and what they may portend for 2026.

Whatever small inroads Trump may have made in Maryland this year, the state has its own unique set of political trends and storylines.

“I think we’re an outlier,” said state Sen. Cory V. McCray (D-Baltimore City). “We’re standing in a state where we have a Black governor and a Black United States senator. We’re defying what the country is saying.”

But, McCray conceded, pointing to the presidential result, “The voters were saying something.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and X.