[Baltimore Sun] Kamala Harris secures expected win over Donald Trump in Maryland
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Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris won Maryland’s 10 electoral college votes Tuesday, easily defeating Republican Donald Trump in a state that has consistently backed Democratic nominees for decades and has displayed a deep dislike of the former president.
Harris was widely expected to win Maryland and The Associated Press said just after polls closed that it was calling the state for her.
Official results had yet to be released by Maryland election officials.
Democratic President Joe Biden trounced Trump in Maryland four years ago, with a margin of 33 percentage points that made the gap one of the largest of any state in the country.
With Maryland a lock for Harris, neither presidential campaign spent time in the Old Line State as they focused instead on battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Michigan and others that will likely determine the outcome and still had not been called by about 8 p.m.
Biden visited Baltimore just last week, though, touting results of his administration’s infrastructure investments and only making quick asides about the presidential race he was no longer involved in. Harris last held events in Maryland in June before she was the party’s nominee, when she spoke at rallies focused on combatting gun violence and protecting abortion access.
Still, Maryland Democrats supporting her campaign were active in rallying behind her both here and beyond state lines.
Democratic Gov. Wes Moore — with a rising national profile and seen as a potential future presidential candidate himself — traveled thousands of miles stumping for Harris as a surrogate in tossup states.
And local voters — both the politically active and others who’d never gotten heavily involved in presidential campaigning — traveled to Pennsylvania and other states to door knock for her, sometimes spending weeks at a time in places like Philadelphia for get-out-the-vote efforts.
As voters in Baltimore and across Maryland cast their ballots for Harris on Tuesday, they said their votes were both to support her and to oppose Trump.
“I hope that Harris can get this place back on track, [because] we need jobs,” said Kevin Phillips, 49, of Columbia, who voted at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia. Not affiliated with any political party, he said he was motivated to vote because of his strong distain for Trump and the way he ran his administration. One of his concerns is unemployment, he said.
“I’m not against foreigners because I’m one myself. My wife is also one. But we need jobs here and we can’t just be giving them away to H-1B [visas],” Phillips said. “We need to make it so that we are bringing about our own doctors and nurses and not having to rely on outside sources.”
Alfreda Watts, a 76-year-old Harlem Park resident, said she was voting for Kamala Harris for president because it’s important for the country to “move forward.”
“Change has to be made,” Watts said, mentioning Harris’ energy, knowledge and concern for the underprivileged as attributes she appreciates.
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Others explained their votes for Trump, citing his four years in office and their perception that he is better equipped to handle economic concerns.
“I’ve got kids to think about, and I voted for Trump just because our economy really sucks and I like his values,” said Carly Lederman, 31, of Westminster.
Steven Majer, 48, said he cast his vote for Trump after not voting in a general election since Bill Clinton was on the ballot. He said Trump is “the one to get things done” and that he felt compelled to vote because of the stark differences in policies between the two presidential candidates.
“It’s important that everyone votes,” said another voter, Anthony Seegars, 51, of Columbia, who wore a Make America Great Again hat.
He and his wife, Stacie, 53, said they were concerned about the economy and immigration and cast their ballots for Trump.
“This is a very crucial election and it’s kind of scary what is possible from what’s been going on and we wanted to do our little part,” Seegars said.
Some Marylanders had also made their way to Harris’ election-night watch party at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Lauren McCadney, a Frederick resident, graduated Howard University the same year as Harris, 1986. Standing in line for the event Tuesday night, McCadney said she was impressed by Harris’s questioning of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
“It was very clear that she was knowledgeable, that she was clear and forceful without being intimidating, but yet at the same time effective,” McCadney said. “As a Black woman executive in the leadership and in the technology industry… I know what it takes to navigate your way through an environment that doesn’t look like you.”
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