Maryland

Wes Moore won a second term over Republican Dan Cox, 64.7% to 31.0%.¹ Democrats kept the attorney general’s and comptroller’s offices, with Anthony G. Brown and Brooke Elizabeth Lierman, by 38.4 and 38.2 points. No U.S. House seat changed hands: the delegation stays at seven Democrats and one Republican. The closest race was the 1st District, where Andy Harris won by 4.9 points in a district Trump carried by 16.9. There was no Senate race.

Kamala Harris carried Maryland by 28.8 points in 2024, so Moore’s margin in the governor’s race is 5.0 points wider than hers in the presidential one. Both parties drew far fewer votes than in 2024: Moore had 74 for every 100 of Harris’s, Cox 65 for every 100 of Donald Trump’s. The votes counted come to 109% of the 2022 total and 72% of the 2024 presidential vote. In the House races Democrats won the statewide vote D+39.5, against D+28.8 in 2024.

The gain was uneven. Maryland’s part of the Washington area, which casts 39% of the vote, moved 8.7 points toward the Democrats, from D+53.9 to D+62.7, and Cox drew only 55 votes there for every 100 of Trump’s. The Baltimore area, with 47%, moved 2.5 points, to D+25.9. The smaller metro areas stayed Republican at R+12.7, and the small towns and rural counties at R+23.0.

No county changed sides. The largest move among the big counties came in the largest of them, Montgomery County, in the Washington area, which went from D+53.3 to D+63.6 on 352,533 votes, 16% of the state’s total. Frederick County, also in the Washington area, went from D+8.8 to D+18.8, and Washington County, around Hagerstown, stayed Republican at R+13.1 after R+23.0. Baltimore County, the second largest, moved only 2.9 points. Five counties moved toward the Republicans, among them Worcester County, which went from R+22.0 to R+22.7.

Democrats keep the governor’s office and both chambers of the General Assembly.¹ Our count has the Senate at 35 Democrats and 12 Republicans, from 34 and 13, and the House of Delegates at 106 to 35, from 102 to 39. The Senate change was District 4, where Democrat Lara Westdorp unseated Republican Sen. William Folden, and MultiState named two Republican delegates unseated by Democrats, Barry Beauchamp and Stuart Schmidt. A veto is overridden by three-fifths of the members elected to each house, 29 senators and 85 delegates, and Democrats were above that line before the election and remain above it.^{1, 2}

For the General Assembly’s own districts, the governor prepares a plan after each census, and it becomes law unless the legislature adopts its own by joint resolution by the 45th day of the session.³ For Congress, Question 3 now says that nothing in the constitution sets criteria for a congressional plan.⁴ The day after the election Moore said he was ready to work at once with legislative leaders on a new congressional map. “Any proposed map needs to be a map that is going to be a fair and representative map,” he told FOX 5 DC on November 4.⁵

Maryland’s State Administrator of Elections is chosen by the five-member State Board of Elections; the governor appoints the board with the Senate’s consent, three members from the majority party and two from the minority. Jared DeMarinis has held the post since September 2023, and the election left the appointing governor and the confirming Senate in Democratic hands.⁶ Moore also faces a structural budget deficit put at $3 billion in the coming session, FOX 5 DC reported, and he said the state can invest and still be fiscally disciplined.⁵

An amendment the General Assembly proposes is adopted when a majority of the votes cast on it are in favor.⁷ All three passed. Question 3, referred to voters at an August special session, says the constitution’s districting requirements apply only to General Assembly districts, sets no criteria for congressional districts and lets the legislature give the Supreme Court of Maryland original jurisdiction over a congressional plan. It drew 61.57% in the State Board of Elections’ unofficial count, 1,294,745 to 808,005.^{4, 8} The Supreme Court of Maryland had ruled 5 to 2 on September 3 that it could stay on the ballot.^{1, 5} Question 1 requires the governor to include money in the proposed budget to pay for agreements between the state and its employees, and drew 75.90%; Question 2 lets the chair of the Commission on Judicial Disabilities fill vacancies temporarily with former members, and drew 68.11%.^{8, 9, 10}

Justice Peter Killough of the Supreme Court of Maryland faced a yes-or-no vote on continuance in office in Circuit 4 and was kept with 86.66%, in the board’s unofficial count.¹¹ In Montgomery County, which cast the most votes, Democrat Will Jawando won the county executive’s office with 78.48% over Republican Esther Wells, and Democrat John McCarthy had no opponent on the ballot for state’s attorney. The school board’s at-large seat, filled without party labels, was close: Omar Lazo led Brenda M. Diaz 51.31% to 48.00%.¹² Patch reported that the Associated Press called the Baltimore County executive’s race for Democrat Julian Jones, who will be the county’s first Black executive.¹³

Republicans won again in the one office in our count that they held, Andy Harris’s U.S. House seat, by a margin much narrower than Trump’s. They lost one state Senate seat, and in our count their delegates went from 39 to 35. They still carried 16 of the 24 counties, and the small towns and rural counties stayed Republican by 23.0 points, about where they were in 2024.

Chris Van Hollen’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028, in a state that voted D+28.8 for president in 2024 and D+33.7 in this year’s governor’s race. Moore cannot run in 2030: the constitution makes a governor who has served two consecutive elected terms ineligible for the next, and the office will be on the ballot in 2030.^{2, 5} A new congressional map can come sooner, now that Question 3 has passed; the legislative districts will next be redrawn after the 2030 census, starting from a plan the governor prepares.^{3, 4, 5}

The results are unofficial. Patch reported that local boards must certify by November 13 and the state by December 9.¹³