Western Maryland: Republicans in Western Maryland want to make it clear that they never actually wanted to secede from the state, three years after they first suggested that their rural areas do so. They claim that state lawmakers’ 2021 plan to join neighbouring West Virginia was less of a serious plan and more of a primal cry of frustration at being confined in a state that leans Democratic and a congressional district that pairs them, like roommates, with a wealthy area of suburban Montgomery County that they claim has different values.
Republican’s Election Plan
In addition to feeling like outcasts, they were frustrated by the fact that a densely populated suburb that is both geographically and conceptually far away frequently outvoted them in U.S. House elections. Although the conservative, isolated counties of Garrett, Allegany, and Washington still feel cut off from most of Maryland, they see the election on November 5 as a crucial chance to elect a representative of their own. One may name it the Revenge of Western Maryland. Instead of running again, rich Montgomery County Democrat David Trone, the incumbent in the 6th Congressional District, decided to run for the Senate.
Majority In House
Montgomery County Democrat April McClain Delaney, the wife of former Representative John Delaney, and Republican Neil Parrott, a former Washington County state delegate running for the seat for the third time in a row, are expected to face off in a close race. Republicans now hold a slim majority in the House, with three vacancies. The campaign for the 6th District will help decide whether party takes control of the chamber. Parrott led 41% to 39% in an independent poll conducted by Gonzales Research & Media Services in early September, with 20% remaining uncertain. That fell within the survey’s 5.6% margin of error, which was based on 317 probable voters.
The last time a candidate from one of the three panhandle counties which are tucked between West Virginia and Pennsylvania won an election in the 6th Congressional District was 54 years ago, when Allegany County Republican J. Glenn Beall Jr. Beginning in Montgomery County, a strongly blue suburb of Washington, the odd-couple district extends through purple Frederick County and into the far western area, which is characterised by farms, mountains, rumbling trucks, lost manufacturing jobs, and a dearth of Democrats.
Displeasure With Regulations From Annapolis
Legislators from Western Maryland have occasionally voiced their displeasure with what they consider to be overly onerous regulations from Annapolis. For instance, they protested when the state outlawed hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a technique for digging for natural gas, in 2017, claiming that the state was denying the region a possible source of economic support. Proponents of the ban pointed to environmental and health issues.
After a judge rejected their first version of the state’s congressional design as the result of excessive partisan gerrymandering, state Democrats drew the new district. In a poll conducted by the Gonzales firm from August 24 to 31, McClain Delaney led 61%-19% in her home county of Montgomery, but Parrott was up 75%-15% in the three western counties, demonstrating the district’s stark geographic divide. In Frederick County, which had nearly equal proportions of Republican and Democratic voters and is situated between McClain Delaney’s and Parrott’s strongholds, she led 44%–29%.