Dozens of Maryland seats will be won or lost in Tuesday’s primary

Primary voters go to the polls Tuesday to narrow the field of hundreds down to the party nominees who will face off for House and Senate seats in November.

That’s the premise, anyway.

But in a blue state like Maryland, the primaries often serve as the general election. While Democrats made a big deal of putting up at least one candidate in every seat in the General Assembly, even in the districts where Democrats face exceedingly long odds, Republicans have failed to field candidates in 20 of the 47 Senate races or 52 of the 141 delegate seats.

Even in districts with challengers, experts say, Maryland’s legislative districts are drawn to heavily favor one party or the other, making hard for any district to flip to the opposite party in the general election.

“The primaries for a state like Maryland – it is the election,” said Joanne Antoine, executive director for Common Cause Maryland. “There are very few places where we are flipping seats.”

That can be troublesome for voter advocacy groups like Common Cause, because it “plays a role in voter apathy,” Antoine said.

Unaffiliated voters air grievances on eve of primary they’re excluded from

In Maryland, Democrat voters outnumber Republicans 2-1, according to May data from the Board of Elections. Maryland has a closed primary system, where only voters registered as Democrats or Republicans can vote to select their party’s nominees for the general election.

“We know the way that the districts are drawn determines political power for certain communities,” Antoine said.

Nikki Tyree, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Maryland, went as far to say that Maryland’s “gerrymandered” districts can dissuade the average voter from participating in the primary elections.

“You have to look at how heavily gerrymandered our districts are,” she said, noting that district lines for state and congressional races create “super safe” races for Democrats or Republicans, depending on location. “Once you get to that position, you have a lot of secure districts.”

Meanwhile, primary elections tend to receive lower voter turnout than general elections, and even lower turnout during a midterm election year that are not attached to a presidential race.

In many more races, primary voters may have a candidate but they won’t have a choice: There will be no more candidates running for a party than there are seats in the district. But in those races where they do have a choice, primary voters could well be picking the next officeholder, assuming third-party or write-in candidates don’t land major upsets in November’s general elections.

Primary Prime Time

That makes the contentious primary races all the more important to watch, like the increasingly heated race for District 41’s Senate seat between incumbent Sen. Dalya Attar (D-Baltimore City) and Del. Malcolm Ruff (D-Baltimore City). With no Republicans in that Baltimore City race, this contentious battle will come to an end when the primary ballots are counted.

Legislative races without Republican contenders:

Senate: District 1o, District 12, District 13, District 14, District 15, District 16, District 18, District 19, District 20, District 24, District 25, District 26, District 28, District 39, District 40, District 41, District 43, District 44, District 45 and District 47.

House (3 seats unless otherwise noted): District 9B (1 seat), District 10, District 11A (1 seat), District 14, District 17, District 18, District 19, District 20, District 21, District 22, District 24, District 25, District 30A (2 seats), District 33A (1 seat), District 37A (1 seat), District 39, District 40, District 41, District 43A (2 seats), District 43B (1 seat), District 45 and District 47B (1 seat).

Attar was was a delegate in 2025 when the Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee narrowly picked her over Ruff to fill the seat left by former Sen. Jill Carter (D-Baltimore City).

It’s a race that advocates say has taken an “ugly turn” in messaging, leading to tension between the district’s Black and Orthodox Jewish communities: Attar is Orthodox, while Ruff is Black.

The race is playing out against a backdrop of an ongoing federal indictment against Attar, who is accused of attempting to blackmail a former campaign supporter. Ruff has pulled ahead of Attar in endorsements from leading Democrats and in campaign fundraising.

The primary results will also determine who will fill the shoes left by “the dean” of the Senate — Sen. Joanne C. Benson (D-Prince George’s), who is not seeking reelection after serving for more than three decades. The results of that race will also come down Tuesday, landing with either Del. Tiffany Alston (D-Prince George’s) or real estate broker Kevin Ford Jr., whom Benson endorsed last week, as the projected winner.

Meanwhile, the seats left vacant in the House of Delegates by Alston’s and Ruff’s Senate runs will also be determined by the primaries.

Six Democrats, including incumbents Del. Derrick Coley and Del. Andrea Harrison, are looking to fill the three Delegate seats in Prince George’s County’s District 24 – with Alston’s seat now up for grabs. There are zero Republicans in that race.

Baltimore City’s District 41 has eight Democrats, including incumbents Dels. Sandy Rosenburg and Sean Stinnett, running for the three seats there, including the one Ruff is vacating. But again, no Republicans to run against in the general elections.

State races without challengers

There are 19 districts — 13 in the Senate and six in the House — where incumbents are running for reelection unopposed. Assuming they get at least one vote in the primary and one in the general, and there are no write-in challenges, their path back to the State House is all but guaranteed.

That means more than one-quarter of the current Senate is essentially assured of reelection.

The 11 House Democrats running for reelection in six districts where they face no Democratic or Republican challengers include House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s). She represents the three-member District 21, along with Del. Ben Barnes, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, and Del. Mary Lehman. The three face no primary or general challengers.

While 24 Democrats have a clear path to reelection, no Republican gets away without a race between now and November.

Democrats field candidates in every legislative race in Maryland for the first time since 1974

Democrats in each district

The Maryland Democrat Party announced in an April press release that, for the first time in more than 50 years, there is at least one Democratic candidate running in every State House and Senate race.

“It is a real sign of enthusiasm and motivation when a party is able to run a full slate of candidates across all districts,” said Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections.

He’s skeptical that just having a Democratic candidate in each race “means they’re going to flip a whole bunch of solid Republican seats” but at least the Democrats in red districts will have a choice in the matter.

“That’s the most basic function of a party is to give voters an option,” Rubashkin said. “So it’s a sign of strength and it’s a sign of enthusiasm when a party has candidates across all the races — even the ones they’re not going to win.”

That’s not the case for Republican voters in blue districts.

Those races may also feel a bit predetermined due to the high expectation that certain districts favor Democrats and others favor Republicans.

“I think it’s a combination of a polarized America,” said Mileah Kromer, director of the UMBC Institute of Politics. “People don’t cross party lines to vote that often – but really the issue is how the district lines are drawn.”

She noted that voter demographics may also contribute to the lack of candidates on the Republican side in certain races.

Democratic incumbents without primary or Republican challengers:

Senate: District 10, District 12, District 13, District 14, District 15, District 18, District 19, District 20, District 25, District 43, District 44, District 45, District 47

House: District 20 (3 seats), District 21 (3 seats), District 37A, District 43A (2 seats), District 43B, District 47B

“The demographics of Maryland, with a two-to-one Democratic-Republican ratio, an incumbent Democratic governor who has a multimillion-dollar war chest – for Republicans … it could potentially be difficult to get a lot of enthusiasm for that primary because of how difficult the general elections is going to be,” Kromer said.

Congressional battlefields

Republicans have fielded at least one candidate in each of the state’s eight congressional districts, so no races will be entirely decided on Tuesday. But election watchers will keep eye on two Congressional races where most of the excitement will occur on primary night – the crowded race for the Democratic nomination in the 5th District, and the tussle between two millionaires running for the 6th District.

The results of primary election will determine if Del. Adrian Boafo (D-Prince George’s) will secure the Democratic nomination to run for Maryland’s District 5 — or if any of the more than 2o other candidates will come out on top.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th), who is stepping down after decades of serving in Congress, quickly endorsed Boafo to succeed him in the crowded race. Boafo has also received endorsements from Gov. Wes Moore (D) and U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.).

But there are other notable Democrats looking to nab the nomination, including former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker, businesswoman Quincy Bareebe and state Sen. Arthur Ellis (D-Charles).

Three Republican candidates will face off in the primaries for the GOP nomination, although voters in the 5th District – comprised of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties and parts of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties – are expected to favor the Democratic candidate.

In the 6th District, there are eight Democrats running, along with three Republicans and a Green Party candidate. But most of the attention has been focused on the costly showdown between incumbent Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-6th) and David Trone, who held the seat previously.

McClain Delaney won the seat in 2024 after Trone mounted an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate.

Candidates add tens of millions in self-funding as congressional primaries loom

Trone, the millionaire founder of Total Wine, has funneled $25 million of his own money into the race, while McClain Delaney has loaned her campaign $7.2 million. She has the backing of Maryland’s current Democratic congressional delegation, but the campaign is playing out in ads where each attack the other’s record and claim to be the best antidote to President Donald Trump and his policies.

But for all of these races, nearly one voter in four is barred from participating in Maryland, where more than 1 million registered voters are not affiliated with either major party and are thus excluded due to the state’s closed primaries system.

Of Maryland’s 4.3 million registered voters, 2.2 million are registered Democrats, 1,019,000 are registered Republicans, and 1,004,000 are unaffiliated voters, according to May data from the Board of Education.

Kromer suggestedthat open primaries could help push back against voter apathy and spur more excitement into both primary and general elections.

“If you were an unaffiliated voter in the state, you probably wish you could vote in the primary election,” she said. “If we just open the primaries up, that allows a lot more voters to have a say in the election that, unfortunately, really matters the most.”

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.