Democratic contest for Baltimore mayor tops primary race

BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland residents are going to the polls and returning mail-in ballots for the state’s primary, and the highest-profile race Tuesday is the Democratic contest to be the nominee for Baltimore’s mayor.

The winner of that race in Maryland’s largest city will likely become mayor. Democrats outnumber Republicans 10-1 in Baltimore, making November’s general election mostly a formality.

Baltimore voters are looking for a leader who can rein in violent crime, address entrenched poverty and restore steadily eroding trust in local government. More than 20 Democrats are seeking that challenge.

The election comes a year after City Hall was raided as part of a public corruption scandal that resulted in the resignation of then-Mayor Catherine Pugh. She was sentenced in February to three years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from lucrative bulk sales of her self-published children’s books.

The Democratic front-runners are former Mayor Sheila Dixon, City Council President Brandon Scott, former Maryland Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah and former U.S. Treasury Department Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Mary Miller. Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, who automatically ascended to the job after Pugh’s resignation, is also asking voters to give him four more years but has admitted that his campaign was hampered by the amount of time he has had to focus on the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tuesday’s outcome will ultimately be a referendum on Baltimore’s political class. Miller and Vignarajah have held no jobs at City Hall unlike Scott and Dixon, who is again trying to make a political comeback after being convicted a decade ago of misappropriating gift cards for the poor while in office. Her first attempt failed in a primary loss to Pugh in 2016.

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