A gerrymandered map made this district blue. Two decades later, western Maryland is still waiting for a representative it actually chose.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
The numbers are simple. In 2024, Republican Neil Parrott carried Washington County by 22 points, Allegany County by 36 points, and Garrett County by 55 points. He lost the district anyway — because Montgomery County delivered April McClain Delaney a 42-point margin that overrode everything west of Frederick.
This is not an accident. It is a map.
How the Map Was Made
Before 2012, Maryland’s 6th was one of the safest Republican seats in the mid-Atlantic. Republican Roscoe Bartlett won it nine consecutive times after first taking the seat in 1993. Then Governor Martin O’Malley’s redistricting panel redrew the lines after the 2010 census — and the scale of what they did was extraordinary. Rather than adjust the district at the margins, map drawers moved an estimated 711,162 people into or out of the 6th District — more than 40 times the number needed to achieve population equality.
The intent was explicit. O’Malley and others involved candidly acknowledged their goal: to dilute Republican votes in the 6th District and prevent voters there from reelecting Congressman Bartlett. It worked. Bartlett lost to Democrat John Delaney in 2012 by 21 points — the same district where he had once won by 20.
The redrawn 6th became so contorted that in 2012, it was found to be the ninth least compact congressional district in the United States. The resulting lawsuit — Benisek v. Lamone — went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled that partisan gerrymandering was not a matter for federal courts to decide. Justice Elena Kagan, in oral argument, put it plainly: “A long-standing Republican incumbent is unseated by a Democratic newcomer, who withstands a wave election, who prevails three straight times. I mean, it appears that the Maryland legislature got exactly what it intended.”
The 2022 redistricting partially corrected the distortion, trimming back some of Montgomery’s weight and adding more of Frederick County — making the seat more competitive. But the structural tilt remains. Remove Montgomery today, and the four western counties still deliver a Republican majority by wide margins.
Two Democrats, One Montgomery Shadow
Since 2013, the seat has passed through a remarkably tight network: John Delaney held it until 2019, David Trone held it until 2025, and now April McClain Delaney — John Delaney’s wife — holds it today. None of them are from the rural panhandle. All of them have lived and built careers in the Montgomery-to-Potomac corridor.
Both Trone and McClain Delaney have sponsored legislation touching real Western Maryland problems. Trone made mental health and addiction recovery his signature issue — a genuine priority in opioid-ravaged Allegany and Garrett counties. McClain Delaney has introduced rural broadband grants, telemedicine expansion, and agricultural conservation bills in her first term.
But both have voted as reliable mainstream Democrats on nearly every national priority. And their highest-profile individual actions often reflect priorities that land differently in the panhandle than in the suburbs.
The clearest recent example: McClain Delaney introduced H.R. 7470, the “Keep ICE Out of Washington County” Act, blocking a proposed 1,500-bed federal immigration processing facility in Williamsport — a project the Washington County Board of Commissioners had backed 4-0, citing potential jobs, infrastructure investment, and federal dollars in a county that has long needed economic development. Whatever one thinks of the underlying immigration policy, the bill’s effect was to cut off a revenue stream that local elected officials in the district’s most Republican county had voted to pursue.
The most revealing detail in the Trone-Delaney primary, however, points in the other direction. Trone is attacking McClain Delaney from the left — accusing her of not fighting Trump hard enough. His central exhibit is her vote for the Laken Riley Act, which tightened detention rules for undocumented immigrants. She was the only Maryland Democrat to vote in favor of the legislation.
Western Maryland conservatives would likely view that Laken Riley Act vote as a point in her favor. Trone and national progressives view it as disqualifying. The irony captures the district’s impossible geometry.
A representative who makes one concession to western Maryland’s values gets attacked for it by her Democratic primary opponent — while the panhandle itself has no real leverage over either of them.
The 2026 Reckoning
Now Trone is trying to take the seat back, framing himself as the fighter Delaney isn’t. She’s framing him as someone who abandoned the district for a Senate run and now wants his old seat as a consolation prize. McClain Delaney has consolidated endorsements from every Democrat in Maryland’s congressional delegation, Governor Wes Moore, Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller, and Attorney General Anthony Brown.
Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater has endorsed Trone, giving him a significant foothold in the district’s most competitive county. The June 2026 primary is shaping up to be expensive — Trone self-funded over $60 million in his failed 2024 Senate bid, and McClain Delaney contributed $3.9 million of her own money in her 2024 House race. Neither will be short of resources.
For voters in Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties, the primary is almost beside the point. Neither candidate emerged from the western panhandle. Neither owes their political viability to it. Both are wealthy, Montgomery-adjacent Democrats whose margins in the reddest counties have never come close.
The 2022 redistricting did trim Montgomery’s weight — but only because a state court judge forced Democrats’ hand. The General Assembly passed the remedial map along strict party lines, conceding as little as possible. The district’s Cook Partisan Voting Index shifted from D+6 to D+2. The structural thumb on the scale got lighter. It did not come off.
That matters because the deeper problem was never really the map — it was what the map makes possible. Neither Trone nor McClain Delaney faces a meaningful accountability test from the people who live in the reddest half of this district. A candidate from Hagerstown or Cumberland or Garrett County who genuinely understands the panhandle’s economic anxieties, its relationship to energy and agriculture, its frustration with federal enforcement priorities — that candidate can run a perfect campaign and still lose a Democratic primary to a well-funded Potomac corridor Democrat, because Montgomery County’s primary voters will decide the outcome before western Maryland finishes counting.
The question for 2026 isn’t just who wins. It’s whether this district will ever produce a representative who actually owes their career to western Maryland — rather than one who visits it.
Data and sourcing: Congress.gov bill and voting records; Brennan Center for Justice redistricting analysis (2018); official 2024 Maryland election results by county; FEC campaign finance filings; Washington County Board of Commissioners public statements; Benisek v. Lamone court record and Supreme Court oral argument transcripts; Maryland Matters, The Baltimore Banner, The Hill, Inside Elections, and WYPR reporting on the 2026 primary.
MDBayNews will continue tracking the Trone-Delaney primary and its impact on Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties through the June 23, 2026, primary.
Keep MDBayNews Reporting Free
MDBayNews exists to help Marylanders understand decisions made by state and local leaders — especially when those decisions affect daily life, rights, and public services.
If this article helped clarify what’s happening or why it matters, reader support makes it possible to keep publishing clear, independent reporting like this.
Have a tip or documents to share?
We review submissions carefully and confidentially. Anonymous tips are welcome when appropriate.
Discover more from Maryland Bay News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.