By Adam Pagnucco.
Ever since Maryland threw off the yoke of the British monarchy, neither the state nor its counties have recognized royalty. That does not stop political pundits looking for page views like me, as this site crowned King Andrew yesterday (at least in financial terms). But he has a royal peer, even if it’s in a different kingdom. That’s District 18 Senator Jeff Waldstreicher.
As I did for the county elected officials, I assembled campaign finance stats for the cycle for the county’s nine state senators and 26 delegates. (I will publish data for the latter tomorrow.) Legislative District 9, which is represented by State Senator Katie Fry Hester, is mostly located in northern Howard County but includes a small slice of MoCo near Damascus.
Why is Waldstreicher king for a day (and maybe longer)? Let’s start with net raised (total raised minus total spent) for the cycle, which is shown for the nine senators below.
Waldstreicher raised waaaay more than two standing committee chairs (District 15’s Brian Feldman and District 20’s Will Smith) and a senator who will almost certainly face a Republican challenger (Hester). Let’s also remember the nature of Feldman’s district, which includes the gold-paved streets of Potomac. One note: District 16 Senator Sara Love was appointed to her seat in June 2024, so I do not expect her fundraising to equal her colleagues.
Now let’s show cash balance at 1/8/25, the end date of the January 2025 report.
On this stat, Waldstreicher barely edges out Feldman. But consider that Feldman has not faced a seriously competitive election since 2002(!!) while Waldstreicher has had credible opponents in all five of his elections. Unlike most other senators, Waldstreicher never gets a break and has to continually refill his warchest.
Let’s conclude with burn rate, which is the percentage of receipts that has already been spent for the cycle.
Waldstreicher raised by far the most money and had by far the lowest burn rate. That’s hard to do and worthy of royal recognition.
The table below shows all of the above data and more for the cycle at this point.
Here is a wild fact. Waldstreicher’s net raise for the cycle ($440,145) exceeded Attorney General Anthony Brown ($246,626). So did his end cash balance ($592,582 vs $462,582) and his burn rate (10% vs 33%). Feldman’s cash balance also exceeded Brown’s. Both Waldstreicher and Feldman are attorneys. I’m just saying, folks…
There is more here than just money. At his 2022 campaign forum with challenger Max Socol, Waldstreicher mentioned a number of bills he was then working on. Since then, he has authored and passed three of them pertaining to tenant rights, gun accountability and pedestrian and bicycle safety (with House cross-files signed into law on the latter two). It’s a legislative record that will look good on mailers if the occasion arises.
Waldstreicher and County Executive Marc Elrich are the only two politicians in the county who have triumphed in five straight elections with credible opponents. (I profiled Waldstreicher’s latest win over Socol, a capable candidate who challenged him from the left, in a two-parter back in 2022.) For the life of me, I can’t understand why he is sooooooo underestimated. Part of it may be the nature of District 18, which has more people in it who think they could do a good job in Annapolis than the number of people who actually serve in Annapolis. Part of it may be comparisons to his illustrious predecessors who include Chris Van Hollen and Rich Madaleno. But whatever the reason, he keeps getting challenged and he keeps clobbering his opponents.
Waldstreicher may not love the constant competition, but as a guy who gets eyeballs by writing about elections, I sure do. In the wake of Socol’s 28-point loss, let’s see if anyone else takes a shot at King Jeff.