By Adam Pagnucco.
Previously, we have recognized King Andrew and King Jeff for their conquests on the fundraising battlefield. Is there any royalty among MoCo’s delegates?
Let’s start as we did with MoCo’s senators by looking at net raised for the cycle, which is total raised minus total spent. Notes: Bernice Mireku-North, Sarah Wolek, Teresa Woorman, Ryan Spiegel and Greg Wims were appointed to the House in this term. Data for Joe Vogel includes just his 2024 report since he filed an affidavit claiming less than $1,000 raised this year.
The top two leaders are predictable: District 20’s Jheanelle Wilkins, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, and District 16’s Marc Korman, who chairs the House Environment and Transportation Committee. The next two were less predictable: District 16 freshman Delegate Sarah Wolek and veteran District 19 Delegate Bonnie Cullison. Wolek’s feat is particularly impressive given that she was appointed to the seat less than two years ago.
Now let’s show cash balance at 1/8/25, the end date of the January 2025 report.
Once again, Korman, Wilkins and Cullison are at the top.
Let’s conclude with burn rate, which is the percentage of receipts that has already been spent for the cycle.
Wolek shines here as someone who brought in a lot of money and spent little of it. That’s textbook campaign financing.
The voluminous table below shows the above figures plus a lot more. Bear in mind that all data applies to the cycle, not just last year.
Delegates face a different challenge than senators. Senators run in one-seat races. Any opponent has to run at them directly and knock them out. In 2010, this happened twice in MoCo, with District 14 Delegate Karen Montgomery defeating Senator Rona Kramer and District 19 Delegate Roger Manno defeating Senator Mike Lenett. Delegates run in three-seat races, with the top three vote-getters winning. The danger for a delegate is usually not being directly targeted, but rather taking collateral damage from hungry non-incumbents. Preparation is key.
The classic example of a coasting incumbent delegate getting taken down is District 18 Delegate Leon Billings, who lost his seat in 2002. I wrote about what happened eight years later.
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Billings was appointed to replace his wife shortly after she was re-elected in 1994. In 1998, he benefitted from a united incumbent slate that was challenged only by school board member Ana Sol Gutierrez, who finished a distant fourth. In 2002, Delegate Sharon Grosfeld ran for Senate, causing a ton of quality challengers to get in for the open seat. Billings, who had never won a tight race before, was knocked out by Gutierrez and county government staffer Rich Madaleno.
In addition to never being much of a campaigner, Billings was victimized by possibly the weirdest Apple Ballot ever. District 18 Delegate John Hurson was redistricted into District 20 and gained the teachers’ endorsement there. But Hurson was later put back into District 18, where the teachers had already endorsed Billings, Gutierrez and Madaleno. So the teachers named four delegate candidates on their 2002 Apple Ballot, two of whom were challengers, and that deprived Billings of a critical incumbent advantage. He lost to Gutierrez by just 217 votes.
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Who might be the next Billings? While MoCo incumbents rarely lose, here are three possibilities.
District 16 Delegate Teresa Woorman – I get that Woorman was appointed in August, but District 16 is one of the wealthiest districts in Maryland. She should have been able to raise more than a net $6,404. Look at what Wolek did in her first year. Like King Jeff’s District 18, Woorman’s district is full of ambitious people, and more than a few of them can self-fund. What if one of them takes a shot?
District 39 Delegates Gabe Acevero and Lesley Lopez – Besides uninspiring fundraising performances, these two share an acrimonious district. Remember Acevero’s parking lot scrap with his former (and perhaps future) opponent Clint Sobratti? The last District 39 race saw a fierce attempt to throw out Acevero and if something like that happens again, all the incumbents should be ready.
Why am I not including District 17 Delegate Joe Vogel, whose financials are at least as bad as the folks above, as a potential Billings? Maybe I should. But I’m not ready to do that because Vogel showed he could raise money in last year’s Congress District 6 primary. (Lopez also ran in the primary and the two were clearly distracted from state-level fundraising.) Also, District 17 does not look as chaotic as District 39. But this is politics, so who knows what will happen next year?
Until then, Korman and Wilkins will govern from their thrones as both will be influential players in Annapolis. May their reigns be benevolent for us all.