By Adam Pagnucco.
In last year’s primary, Kristin Mink dominated a field of Black candidates in plurality-Black Council District 5. Who else did her voters support?
Let’s start with the county executive primary.
County Executive Marc Elrich got about the same share among Mink voters as he did among total voters. But among Mink voters, David Blair under-performed and Hans Riemer over-performed. That may be due to Mink’s complete domination of Four Corners, which is close to Riemer’s stronghold of Downtown Silver Spring.
Now let’s look at the council at-large primary.
Mink voters supported Evan Glass first and Will Jawando second, just as all primary voters did. Their third choice was Laurie-Anne Sayles, who performed well in heavily Black precincts of which there are a lot in Mink’s district. Their fourth choice was Tom Hucker, who represented the U.S. 29 part of Mink’s district when he was on the council. Gabe Albornoz, who did not receive a high percentage of the vote in Silver Spring East County, was nipped by Hucker by just 25 votes.
Let’s combine this with my earlier post on the Council District 5 race. Mink won 42% of the vote in an 8-candidate field. The district is plurality Black and five of the eight candidates were Black. Crucially, Mink only received 34% of the vote in the district’s 14 precincts with the highest Black population percentages. That suggests that Mink could be vulnerable to one strong Black candidate.
Additionally, Mink’s correlation with Riemer is interesting because Riemer’s number one issue was housing. The housing market is tighter than ever, with Black homeownership lower than White, Asian and Latino homeownership. She has also introduced a large recordation tax hike which the realtors contend makes home purchases “almost impossible.” Could a strong Black candidate connect the dots and use this to cause problems for Mink?
We shall find out by the next election.