The Democratic challengers for Montgomery County executive are assembling sizable war chests in their efforts to unseat incumbent Marc Elrich, paving the way for a competitive primary that is likely to focus on the pandemic, rising violent crime, affordable housing and economic development.
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As of the most recent campaign filing date, Elrich had received just over $100,000 in donations, less than all three of his major opponents. He’s participating in Montgomery’s public financing program, which allows him to receive matching funds for donations under $250 from county residents, bringing his fundraising total to about $435,000.
With five months to go before the primary election — which in liberal Montgomery often determines the eventual winner — there is still time for Elrich to catch up. But pundits say that for the independent-minded former schoolteacher to firmly secure his reelection, he needs to ramp up not just his fundraising, but also his outreach, especially in communities that have not typically voted in primary races. More than half of his first term has been spent navigating the coronavirus pandemic, and he has yet to make clear, critics say, what he did to protect and support residents during the public health crisis.
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In an interview Tuesday, Elrich brushed off the recent campaign finance numbers, saying that he didn’t have time to start fundraising until the fall because of the pandemic.
“My entirely political life, people have had more cash on hand than I do,” Elrich added. “That’s never deterred me.”
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Potomac businessman David Blair, who is mounting his second electoral bid after losing the Democratic nomination to Elrich in 2018, has been meeting with voters since last spring.
Blair, formerly the chief executive of a Rockville-based pharmaceutical company, poured $5.4 million into his campaign four years ago and looks poised to replicate some of the strategies that brought him within 77 votes of Elrich. As of January, he has lent himself $1.1 million and received an additional $318,000 from 251 donors, including real estate companies, investment firms and car dealerships. He has spent more than $1 million — the most, by far, of any candidate — to set up an elaborate campaign infrastructure that includes a dozen full-time staffers, office space in Rockville and contracts with two political consulting agencies.
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“It feels like we’re standing on the shoulders of what we did four years ago,” said Blair, who is running on the promise of revitalizing Montgomery’s slowing economy. The county has been trailing Northern Virginia in job growth, federal data shows, losing businesses to neighboring jurisdictions that have lower taxes and less-onerous government regulations.
Council member Hans Riemer (D-At Large), another candidate for county executive, has raised $491,000 through public financing and has received donations from more than 1,250 people. Riemer garnered the most votes of any at-large candidate in the crowded 2018 primary and has the support of “smart growth” advocates who believe in the need for more housing options near transit.
“A lot of Blair’s support was voters who didn’t want to see Marc [Elrich] elected. They were reluctant Blair voters,” Riemer said, noting that according to state finance reports, the number of donations to Blair’s campaign has steadily declined over the past three months.
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Council member Tom Hucker (D-District 5) has raised $371,524 in donations; he’s not participating in public financing. Once Elrich’s ally on the council, Hucker broke last year with the county executive over what he said was Elrich’s poor management of county government, including his administration’s unusually generous hazard pay package for workers and slow progress on climate legislation.
Hucker rose to prominence in the early 2000s for founding the advocacy group Progressive Maryland and has close ties to unions, environmental groups and state lawmakers. He is not term-limited but announced in November that he would be running for Montgomery’s top job instead of a council seat. Pundits have likened some of his politics to Elrich’s and said he could chip away at labor support for the incumbent, who received key union endorsements in 2018. But Hucker has sought to emphasize that he has a different approach to “coalition building” than Elrich, even if they share some core beliefs.
“I know how to disagree with people without making enemies,” he said.
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The county’s biggest unions, including the Montgomery County Education Association and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, have yet to announce their endorsements for county races.
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Devin Battley, a political novice and president of the Lindbergh Park Owners Association in Gaithersburg, also has said he intends to run for county executive. He has criticized the county’s decision not to grant tax credits to Lindbergh Park owners for reducing their storm water runoff.
Whoever wants to clinch the Democratic bid, former council member Valerie Ervin said, needs to build a “broad coalition” of supporters that includes workers as well as business leaders, liberals as well as moderates. There are potential voters, she said, among the Black, Latino and immigrant communities in the eastern part of Montgomery who do not typically turn out at local elections at the same rates as White residents in places including Rockville and Bethesda.
“These four candidates — they’re all male and all White,” Ervin said. “There’ll be a lot of people in the county who won’t even choose.”
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Others, however, think the race will hinge on how well Elrich characterizes his leadership of the county during the pandemic.
“I’m not sure Marc [Elrich] has effectively communicated his successes,” said Jeffrey Slavin, mayor of the town of Somerset and a former vice chair of the Maryland Democratic Party. “The winning issue for him … is how he handled the pandemic.”
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Montgomery has the highest vaccination rate among counties in Maryland, with more than 83 percent of its 1.1 million residents fully vaccinated. In recent waves of the coronavirus, the county has experienced lower infection and mortality rates than other populous Maryland jurisdictions such as Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. Riemer and Hucker argue that the Montgomery council did more to achieve these results than the executive branch.
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Elrich’s reelection also could depend on how many of his previous detractors he was able to win over in his first term. Fears among moderate Democrats in 2018 that he would govern from an “ideological extreme left” and allow the county’s budget to balloon have not panned out. But Elrich has continued to oppose new development, intensifying hostility from developers and business leaders, including Charlie Nulsen, president of the Washington Property Company, who said he has donated the “maximum possible” amount to the campaigns of Blair, Riemer and Hucker.
Nancy Floreen, a former council member who briefly left the Democratic Party in 2018 to run against Elrich as an independent, said she’ll be supporting Blair, although she said she thinks Elrich has more name recognition among voters, having run countywide four times — and won.
The primary, she said, “is his to lose.”
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Along with Riemer, two members of the all-Democratic council, Nancy Navarro (District 4) and Craig Rice (District 2), are term-limited and cannot seek reelection.
Of the remaining incumbents, council member Andrew Friedson (District 1) has raised the most, with $474,628 in his campaign bank account. Council President Gabe Albornoz (At-Large) and Vice President Evan Glass (At Large) have raised $144,160 and $219,405, respectively, through the county’s public financing program, and council member Will Jawando (At Large) has raised $205,845 in direct donations. Council member Sidney Katz (District 3) says he intends to run for reelection but has yet to file formally.