Southeast Baltimore County’s Senate and House races drew genuine contests on both sides this year, a rarity in a state where most legislative seats are decided in June, not November.
By MDBayNews Staff
Legislative District 6, covering Dundalk, Essex, Rosedale, Edgemere and Middle River in southeast Baltimore County, is one of the few places in Maryland where both parties still show up to fight. Registration favors Democrats by a modest 48-30 margin over Republicans, but the district has flipped before, and this cycle both the Senate seat and all three House seats drew multi-candidate primaries in at least one party. That’s genuinely unusual: most Maryland legislative districts settle their real contest in June.
“District 6 is one of the few places in Maryland where both parties still show up to fight.”
State Senate: a fourth term for Salling, a second run for Holliday
Republican Sen. Johnny Ray Salling, first elected in 2014 after the closure of the Sparrows Point steel mill pushed him into politics, turned back a primary challenge from Daniel Eisenhart, taking roughly 58 percent of the vote to Eisenhart’s 42 percent. Salling is a former Army combat engineer and Sparrows Point High School graduate who has held the seat since defeating then-Del. John Olszewski Jr. in 2014; Olszewski went on to serve as Baltimore County Executive and now represents Maryland’s 2nd Congressional District.
His Democratic opponent, Justin Holliday, is a Dundalk native who was a University of Baltimore government and public policy student in the mid-2010s, according to past local reporting, and ran unopposed for the 2026 nomination. It’s not his first campaign: Holliday lost a 2018 Democratic primary for one of District 6’s House seats and later ran for a Baltimore County Council seat. He has worked in both the private and public sectors in southeast Baltimore County, according to his campaign.
“Democrats have the registration advantage. Republicans have every legislative seat.”
House of Delegates: all three GOP incumbents survive contested primaries
District 6 elects three delegates at large, and the Republican primary was the most competitive in the district. All three incumbents defended their seats but each finished under 26 percent of the vote in a crowded field:
Republican primary results:
Bob Long (incumbent) — 25.3%
Robin L. Grammer Jr. (incumbent) — 23.8%
Ric Metzgar (incumbent) — 22.8%
Henry J. Ciezkowski — 18.8%
Bobby Al Jolson Berger — 9.3%
“All three Republican House incumbents survived — but none finished with even 26 percent of the primary vote.”
All three incumbents have served together since 2015. Long previously worked in real estate and introduced legislation this year addressing affordability and public safety. Grammer, an Essex resident, sits on the Environment and Transportation Committee and has been an outspoken critic of automated traffic camera expansion, calling one recent bill “extortion cameras” in comments MDBayNews covered in February. Metzgar, the longest-tenured of the three by a matter of months, worked in ministry before entering politics. Their two primary challengers both brought notable résumés of their own: Ciezkowski is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who ran for Baltimore County Executive in 2022, and Berger describes himself as a disabled Vietnam veteran. Both fell short in their challenge.
On the Democratic side, three candidates advanced from a four-way primary:
Democratic primary results:
Megan Ann Mioduszewski — 35.4%
Rayneika Robinson — 33.2%
Artus W. Huffman — 31.4%
Sandra Skordalos
Mioduszewski, a Dundalk resident and medical laboratory scientist, was District 6’s Democratic nominee in 2022 — she won that year’s primary but lost the general election to the three Republican incumbents — and also ran unsuccessfully in the 2018 primary. Robinson, president of AFSCME Local 3661, describes herself as a lifelong Marylander and first-generation college graduate with a decade of experience in public safety work. Huffman, an assistant principal, is making his first bid for the seat.
Independent candidate:
Brett Shepherd, who qualified for the general election ballot by petition rather than through a primary, is also running. MDBayNews found limited public biographical detail on his candidacy beyond his campaign’s community-improvement platform.
“Most Maryland legislative districts settle their real contest in June. District 6 may actually have one in November.”
What to watch
“District 6 may be Maryland’s clearest test of whether voters still split their tickets.”
A real test of ticket-splitting. With registration favoring Democrats and Republicans holding every seat, District 6 is the closest thing Maryland has to a genuine swing district this cycle — worth watching for signs of whether suburban Baltimore County voters split their tickets in November.
Crime and property taxes versus education policy. MDBayNews’ own reporting on the “MDBayNews Analysis” for this district has flagged that a crime-dominant campaign season tends to favor Republicans here, while a campaign focused on schools and social policy tends to favor Democrats.
Whether an independent candidate draws meaningful votes. Shepherd’s petition-based candidacy is a wildcard in a three-seat race; even a small vote share could affect which two of six major-party candidates round out the delegation.
Sources:Candidate listings, filing statuses, and certified primary vote totals are drawn from the Maryland State Board of Elections’ certified 2026 primary and general election candidate lists. Primary result percentages are drawn from The Baltimore Banner’s 2026 Maryland House primary results tracker and unofficial election-night reporting from the Dundalk Eagle and Avenue News. Candidate biographical details are drawn from Ballotpedia profiles of Johnny Ray Salling, Justin Holliday, Robin L. Grammer Jr., Bob Long (politician) and Richard W. Metzgar; Wikipedia’s sourced pages for Maryland Legislative District 6, Johnny Ray Salling, Robin Grammer Jr., Bob Long and Richard W. Metzgar; Maryland Matters’ 2026 Republican primary voter guide for District 6; and MarylandIQ’s candidate profiles for Artus Huffman, Rayneika Robinson, Bobby Al Jolson Berger and Henry Ciezkowski.
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