Neil Parrott, the Republican nominee for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, speaks to members of the press, while televisions around him project Republican Larry Hogan’s concession speech in the U.S. Senate race. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.
It’s wait-and-see in Western Maryland.
Republican former Del. Neil Parrott and Democratic political newcomer April McClain Delaney told supporters at election night parties Tuesday that the race was still too close to call, with Parrott holding a 1.75% lead with about 86% of Election Day precincts reporting by 11:30 p.m.
Parrott is running for Congress for the third consecutive time as the GOP nominee in the 6th District, this time against McClain Delaney, a former Commerce Department official looking to keep the Western Maryland seat that Democrats have held for the last 12 years.
“So what we have to do is wait for the whole process to play itself out, but I’m feeling very cautiously optimistic and very excited,” McClain Delaney said, as supporters gathered shoulder-to-shoulder at her election night watch party at Mayan Monkey Brewing Co. in Gaithersburg.
Parrott said the same at his election night party at Havana, a night club in Hagerstown.
“I was hoping we would know tonight, but I’m looking at the numbers. This is going to be a very tight race,” he said. “The volunteers have really worked diligently and gotten us to this place where it’s very, very competitive.”
In early returns, Parrott was showing large leads in the state’s three westernmost counties: Garrett, Allegany and Washington. Frederick County was more evenly divided with about 80% of precincts reporting at 11 p.m. McClain Delaney had a wide lead in her home county, Montgomery, the northern-third of which is in the 6th District.
The 6th District was the most closely watched in Maryland, despite the fact that it was one of three open House seats in the state this fall.
But Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, a Democrat, had a comfortable lead over Republican Kim Klacik and Libertarian Jasen Wunder in the 2nd District race to replace Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D), who had held the seat for 11 terms. With 227 of 230 precincts reporting, Olszewski had 55.4% of the vote to Klacik’s 42.3% and Wunder’s 2%.
And state Sen. Sarah Elfreth (D-Anne Arundel) held a comfortable lead in the 3rd District race to replace Rep. Paul Sarbanes (D), a seven-term incumbent. With 212 of 213 precincts reporting, Elfreth had 57% of the vote to 40% for Republican Robert Steinberger and 2.6% for Libertarian Miguel Barajas.
All five incumbents — four Democrats and Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), the only current GOP member of the state’s congressional delegation — were headed to easy reelection Tuesday.
The 6th District seat came open when current Rep. David Trone (D) ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate, spending almost $64 million — a staggering $63 million of it his own money — to lose the Democratic nomination to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Trone held the seat for the last six years, winning it from John Delaney — McClain Delaney’s husband, who also held the seat for six years before mounting a failed bid for U.S. president.
The district, which stretches from northern Montgomery County through Western Maryland, is the most competitive in the state in terms of partisan voter registration, and it only became more competitive in the latest round of congressional redistricting.
Parrott, then a state delegate, sued over the prior district maps, which were widely criticized as a Democratic gerrymander, in 2012; he said the current district boundaries, the result of another court challenge in 2022, are “much more fair, much more representative.”
Still, the race was considered a likely win for Democrats, until analysts in recent weeks downgraded their rating of the district to “leans” Democratic.
The race has drawn an usual amount of funding for a mostly rural district in a heavily Democratic state.
Parrott has been heavily outspent, as he was in his previous races against Trone. He reported raising $910,000 as of last month, according to the Federal Election Commission, compared to $4.3 million for McClain Delaney. She has loaned her campaign more than $3 million.
Both campaigns have received funding from outside groups. The most recent was Gov. Wes Moore’s Unity First PAC, which was set up to oppose the run by former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) for Senate, but last week diverted $50,000 to mount attack ads against Parrott.
McClain Delaney has tried to paint Parrott as too conservative for the district, pointing to his opposition to abortion rights and votes he took in Annapolis that Democrats said weakened domestic violence protections.
Parrott has responded by saying McClain Delaney is out of touch with the conservative district, just another lawyer and Washington bureaucrat without ties to the district. (McClain Delaney lives in the neighboring 8th District, as did her husband during his term representing the 6th.)
The charges and counter-charges boiled over into a shouting match at the end of an early October candidate forum at Hood College, with Parrott accusing McClain Delaney of distorting his record, and both candidates pointing fingers and raising voices. The campaigns followed that display the next day with statements accusing the other of being unfit for office.
They managed to keep things more civil at a debate 10 days later in Hagerstown, where each candidate outlined policy positions that were more in keeping with their respective party positions on immigration, crime, climate change and housing.
All election results are preliminary until they’re certified. There were 102,730 mail ballots sent out in the 6th District. A little more than 43,000 were included in Election Day reporting results.