By Adam Pagnucco.
A number of political committees with ties to the county’s Republican Party have launched ads targeting Council Member Will Jawando, who is running for county executive. The ads reveal a central truth: Jawando is the Democratic executive candidate that the GOP opposes the most.
Earlier this week, the Banner reported that Republican Council District 1 candidate Reardon “Sully” Sullivan, who is the county GOP’s First Vice Chair, has been running negative ads against Jawando in Bethesda Today that Jawando has condemned as racist. (Like Jawando, Sully is a Black man.) But that’s not all. Sully, the county GOP and the Committee to Control MoCo Spending have all been running digital ads criticizing Jawando. The latter group is a ballot question committee founded to gather signatures for a charter amendment that would limit county spending. Its contributors include many officers and central committee members of the county GOP.
The GOP is particularly concerned about Jawando’s record on taxes and public safety. It’s true that Jawando believed tax increases were justified in 2023 and last year. However, not only has Jawando opposed a property tax rate increase this year, he is the only county executive candidate on the council who has released an itemized plan to avoid it. He has also gone on the record for preserving a $692 tax credit for homeowners that some of his colleagues would like to abolish.
If the council indeed manages to avoid a tax increase, they will likely have to draw on elements of the plans by Jawando and Council President Natali Fani-González to accomplish it. If that happens, would the GOP consider running ads praising Jawando for stopping a tax hike?
While that’s unlikely, it’s true that there is no MoCo Democrat that the GOP likes. They have targeted others, including County Executive Marc Elrich and Council Member Evan Glass, in the past. But Jawando is probably the Democrat that the Republicans dislike the most, maybe even more than Elrich. That’s why they attack him. And while Jawando may resent some of the crude caricatures they release about him, the opposition by Republicans can only help him in a fiercely contested Democratic primary.
A sampling of GOP attacks against Jawando appears below. It is followed by two caricatures they have released against Glass in the past.
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And these are two attacks by the GOP on Council Member Evan Glass in the past.
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