By Adam Pagnucco.
In the years when Montgomery County had just five county council districts, East County (defined here as the areas around Route 29 and New Hampshire Avenue) did not have enough population to get its own council district. In the old days, it was lumped in with part of the Georgia Avenue corridor and unincorporated eastern Rockville. Over the last decade, it shared a district with Downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park. East County sometimes took a back seat to these other areas.
Those days are over.
With the passage of Council Member Evan Glass’s charter amendment expanding the number of council districts to seven, East County is now large enough to get its own district, Council District 5. Its first election saw massive political competition to represent it as eight candidates lined up to compete. As District 5 was set up to be a Black-plurality district, five of those eight candidates – Fatmata Barrie, Jeremiah Pope, Daniel Koroma, Christopher Bolton and William Montier – were Black. But the winner turned out to be Kristin Mink, who will now be the county’s first Chinese American council member.
Let’s start by looking at campaign finances for the cycle.
The district’s lead fundraiser was Mink, who maxed out public matching funds in the county’s public financing program. She exceeded Pope’s total by almost $60,000 despite Pope’s self-funding of $41,000. The other candidates did not approach Mink’s fundraising.
Barrie was the choice of most progressive groups, winning endorsements from MCEA, SEIU Local 500, Casa in Action, Progressive Maryland and LIUNA. MCGEO, the AFL-CIO and the grocery store workers union picked Koroma. Pope was supported by the Washington Post. Planning department staffer Brian Anleu was endorsed by the Sierra Club, the fire fighters and the realtors. As for Mink, her top endorsements came from SEIU Local 32BJ (janitors) and Our Revolution – a combination not normally in the class of the others listed above.
Mink’s endorsement deficiency ultimately proved inconsequential. She picked up 42% of the vote, an amazing figure for a new candidate in an eight-candidate field. Barrie received 24% of the vote, Pope received 15% and no one else broke double digits. Equally amazing was Mink’s winning of every major local area in the district as well as 24 of the district’s 30 precincts. And here is the truly crazy part: Mink only started running in the district in December, when she switched from the council at-large race.
The chart below shows the local area results for Mink, Barrie and Pope. Mink appears in blue, Barrie in red and Pope in yellow.
Mink didn’t always beat her opponents by huge margins, but she won all over the district. That said, there was a racial component to the district’s election results. Of the top 25 precincts in the county for each racial group, District 5 had 8 of the most heavily Black precincts, 3 of the most heavily White precincts and 2 of the most heavily Latino precincts. (See my methodology post for definitions.) Below are the results for Mink, Barrie, Pope and Anleu in those precincts. Mink appears in blue, Barrie in red, Pope in yellow and Anleu in green.
Mink dominated the three heavily White precincts – two in Leisure World and the other in Four Corners. But she had a small lead in the Black precincts and lost the two Latino precincts to Barrie. (The latter two are located in Hillandale and Aspen Hill.)
Let’s remember that District 5 was designed to be a Black-plurality district. Mink ran against five Black candidates who collectively received 48% of the vote, 6 points more than her total. What happens if Mink gets one strong Black opponent next time? I wouldn’t bet against her – she has demonstrated her talent and work ethic, and given her strong progressive bent, she should have a ton of progressive endorsements as an incumbent. But if she wants to minimize any opposition in her next race, she will need to build her support in the Black community.