Congressional races: Elfreth wins opens seat, incumbents reelected
Democrat Sarah Elfreth prevailed in Maryland's 3rd Congressional District, according to the Associated Press, a heavily Democratic area that includes swaths of Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
Elfreth, 36, is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress from Maryland.
In Maryland's 6th Congressional District, the race between Democrat April McClain Delaney and Republican Neil Parrott was too close to call. The matchup in a district that includes Western Maryland and part of Montgomery County is the state's most closely watched congressional race .
Democrat Johnny Olszewski Jr. won Maryland's other open House seat in the 2nd District , while elections across the other five congressional districts saw no upsets.
More on Maryland's U.S. House races that AP has called:
Elfreth cruised to victory over Republican attorney Rob Steinberger in an oblong-shaped district that encompasses Annapolis and Columbia, as well as parts of Baltimore and Montgomery counties.
The state senator will replace outgoing nine-term Democrat John Sarbanes, who decided not to seek reelection .
The real intrigue in the race came during the May primaries, when Elfreth, backed by millions of dollars from a powerful pro-Israel lobby, emerged from a competitive field of 22 candidates to secure the Democratic nomination.
By the time Tuesday's general election came around, voters like 41-year-old Lail Kleinman chose Elfreth out of party loyalty.
"It's important to have more Democrats in Congress to support the agenda of the Democratic Party," Kleinman said from a polling place in Glenelg.
In the majority-Republican 1st District , which includes the Eastern Shore and parts of Baltimore, Carroll and Harford counties, Rep. Andy Harris defeated Blane Miller, a Democrat and Navy veteran, to win an eighth term in the House.
An anesthesiologist and chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus , Harris is a staunch ally of Trump, voting after the 2020 election to challenge results in states that the former president lost.
Ahead of Tuesday's election, Harris appeared to support a plan that would have awarded North Carolina's electoral votes to Trump before any results had been reported, though he later tried to walk back his remarks.
Rep. Glenn Ivey defeated Republican challenger George McDermott to win a second term representing the 4th District, which surrounds eastern Washington and ranks among the most partisan districts in the country. Among the nearly 400,000 registered voters, 83% are Democrats.
McDermott has run to represent the 4th District seven times — including as a Democrat in 2012 — and lost each time.
Months after recovering from a mild stroke , the 85-year-old Rep. Steny Hoyer easily won reelection against Republican businesswoman Michelle Talkington in Southern Maryland's 5th District.
Hoyer was once the second-ranking Democrat in the House behind former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but he stepped back from his role in party leadership after the 2022 election. He celebrated a major victory last year when the FBI announced it would build its new headquarters in Prince George's County, an effort he long championed .
Hoyer has represented the 5th District, which sits southeast of D.C., for 43 years. The district encompasses all of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's Counties, as well as parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George's Counties.
Rep. Kweisi Mfume handily won reelection against Republican YouTube personality Scott Collier in the 7th District, a majority-minority district that includes nearly all of Baltimore City.
Mfume, 76, represented the 7th District from 1987 to 1996 before resigning to lead the NAACP. He returned to office in 2020 following the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings. Collier is a frequent congressional candidate who has promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and vowed to never accept campaign donations.
A rising figure in the Democratic Party , Rep. Jamie Raskin was reelected to a fifth term from the 8th District, defeating Republican public relations strategist Cheryl Riley. The district sits adjacent Washington and is situated almost entirely in Montgomery County.
Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, raised his national profile when he served as the lead impeachment manager in Trump's Senate trial following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He was seen as a contender for for Maryland's open U.S. Senate seat but opted not to run , just months after battling cancer .
In July, Raskin was among the leading Democratic voices calling on President Joe Biden to reconsider his reelection bid. Later that month, Biden withdrew from the presidential race.
