Neil Parrott, the GOP nominee for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, speaks to supporters at an election night party in Hagerstown. Parrott conceded the race Thursday to Democrat April McClain Delaney. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.
Turns out the third time was not the charm for Neil Parrott, the Republican nominee in the 6th District congressional race.
Parrott, who ran unsuccessfully for the same seat in 2020 and 2022, threw in the towel on the 2024 race Thursday, acknowledging that with the vast majority of votes counted “it has become clear that April McClain Delaney will be elected to this Congressional seat.”
“I wish Mrs. McClain-Delaney all the best as she executes her duties to serve the people of Maryland’s 6th Congressional District over the next two years,” Parrott said in a statement posted to social media Thursday afternoon.
His concession comes almost a week after McClain Delaney, the Democrat, claimed victory in the race, and one day before local election boards are scheduled to complete their counting of ballots in the Nov. 5 election.
The Maryland State Board of Elections reported Thursday afternoon that McClain Delaney had 191,579 votes to Parrott’s 172,795, a margin of 52.5% to 47.3%. It was unclear how many ballots remained to be counted, but Garrett County was still counting mail-in ballots Thursday and Montgomery County was still counting provisional ballots, according to the elections board.
The concession brings to a close the mostly closely watched House race in the state. The 6th District, stretching from northern Montgomery County to the western border of the state, is one of the most competitive in terms of voter registration. It got more Republican-friendly in a recent redistricting and Parrott, a former state delegate, began the race with high name recognition from his earlier campaigns.
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But McClain Delaney, a lawyer and former Commerce Department official, heavily outspent Parrott in the race, which drew significant attention from outside groups. Parrott reported raising $910,000 in his filing last month with the Federal Election Commission, compared to $4.3 million for McClain Delaney. More than $3 million of that was money she loaned to her campaign.
Parrott has been outspent before: His last two campaigns were against Rep. David Trone (D-6th), a wealthy businessman who put tens of millions of his own funds into a failed campaign for the Democratic nomination for Senate this year, leaving the House seat open.
McClain Delaney and Parrott presented voters with a starkly different choice, with campaign positions that hewed to their respective party’s lines on most issues. McClain Delaney consistently said Parrott was too conservative for the district, citing his votes against abortion rights while in Annapolis, while Parrott called McClain Delaney — who lives outside the district — out of touch with Western Maryland.
As expected, the conservative western counties in the district — Allegany, Garrett and Washington — went heavily for Parrott, but McClain Delaney built a solid lead Frederick County and dominated in Montgomery County to secure the win.
The win preserves Democrats’ dominance in Maryland’s congressional delegation, where the party holds both Senate seats and seven of eight House seats. But Democrats will still be in the minority in both chambers on Capitol Hill, and answering to a Republican president, after the 2024 elections.
While the results are still not official, McClain Delaney was in Washington this week for orientation meetings for incoming House freshmen. Her win follows 12 years of Democratic control of the 6th District seat: Trone held it for the last three elections and John Delaney, McClain Delaney’s husband, held it for six years before that.
Parrott on Thursday thanked the “enthusiastic, grassroots support of people from all walks of life who worked alongside us over the last several months,” who helped run “a positive campaign, focused on the issues that matter to Garrett, Allegany, Washington and Frederick Counties, as well as the northern part of Montgomery County.”
“Maryland’s 6th District is a wonderful place to live, and my wife and I will continue to serve and invest in our community,” his statement said.