By Adam Pagnucco.
The Maryland Sierra Club has issued a second round of state-level endorsements. We have previously listed their first round of endorsements and their county-level endorsements in MoCo. The new MoCo candidates who have been endorsed are:
District 14: Senator Craig Zucker, Delegate Pam Queen. Delegates Anne Kaiser and Eric Luedtke were endorsed in the first round.
District 15: Delegate candidate Lily Qi. Senator Brian Feldman and Delegates Kathleen Dumais and David Fraser-Hidalgo were endorsed in the first round.
District 16: Delegate candidate Sara Love. Senator Susan Lee and Delegates Ariana Kelly and Marc Korman were endorsed in the first round.
District 17: Delegate candidate Julie Palakovich Carr. Senator Cheryl Kagan and Delegates Kumar Barve and Jim Gilchrist were endorsed in the first round.
District 18: Senate candidate Jeff Waldstreicher, Delegate candidates Emily Shetty and Jared Solomon. Delegate Al Carr was endorsed in the first round.
District 19: Senate candidate Ben Kramer, Delegate candidate Vaughn Stewart. Delegates Bonnie Cullison and Marice Morales were endorsed in the first round.
District 20: Senator Will Smith, Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins. Delegate David Moon was endorsed in the first round.
District 39: Senator Nancy King, Delegate candidate Lesley Lopez. Delegates Kirill Reznik and Shane Robinson were endorsed in the first round.
Every MoCo incumbent running for reelection was endorsed. Two Delegates running for Senate, Jeff Waldstreicher and Ben Kramer, were also endorsed. The full statewide list can be seen here.
The big winners here are the non-incumbent House candidates looking to distance themselves from competitors, including Qi (D-15), Love (D-16), Palakovich Carr (D-17), Shetty and Solomon (D-18), Stewart (D-19) and Lopez (D-39). Lopez is a really big winner because she gets to talk about something other than the District 39 slate controversy and she interrupts a growing slew of labor endorsements for her most viable rival, MCGEO employee Gabe Acevero. Interestingly, the Sierra Club did not choose between the leading two District 20 open House seat contenders, Lorig Charkoudian and Darian Unger.
We are tracking prominent institutional endorsements and will post a summary list soon.