Maryland’s 4th Congressional District has three names on the November ballot: Democratic incumbent Glenn Ivey, Republican George McDermott, and Green Party candidate Sam Husseini. The district’s history and current partisan numbers are part of the context for any race here, but so is the fact that Husseini’s campaign is built entirely around a critique of Ivey from the left, giving this cycle a different flavor than a standard two-party matchup. Here’s what voters in Prince George’s County and the sliver of Montgomery County that make up MD-4 need to know about each candidate.
The District, Briefly
MD-4 wraps around the eastern edge of Washington, D.C., taking in most of Prince George’s County and a small portion of Montgomery County. It’s the wealthiest Black-majority district in the country and the most Democratic district in Maryland’s congressional delegation: the Cook Political Report rates it D+39, well ahead of the next-highest Maryland seat. Ivey defeated Republican George McDermott 88.7% to 11.3% in 2024. That’s a wider margin than the district saw under his predecessor, Anthony Brown, who won it 74% to 21% in 2016 and 78% to 20% in 2018 — the seat has trended even more lopsidedly Democratic since Ivey took over in 2023.
MD-4 has not been part of the redistricting fight playing out in Annapolis this year, for the same reason MD-2 and MD-3 haven’t: Democrats already hold it by an overwhelming margin, so that debate has centered entirely on Maryland’s lone Republican-held district, MD-1. MD-4 voters will still see the statewide constitutional amendment on redistricting on their ballot, but it has no bearing on this race.
“MD-4 is the most Democratic district in Maryland’s congressional delegation: the Cook Political Report rates it D+39.”
Glenn Ivey (D) — The Incumbent
Ivey, of Cheverly, is seeking his third term after a long career in law and public service. He was twice elected State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County, serving from 2002 to 2011, and before that worked on Capitol Hill as chief counsel to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and as counsel to Sen. Paul Sarbanes during the Whitewater investigation. He also spent time as an assistant U.S. attorney under Eric Holder and chaired Maryland’s Public Service Commission in the late 1990s. He’s a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
In the current Congress, Ivey serves on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Ethics Committee; he also served on the Judiciary Committee during his first term. He was selected by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in 2024 to join the bipartisan task force investigating the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
A Closer Look at Ivey’s Fundraising
Ivey’s campaign has raised roughly $674,000 this cycle, with about $459,000 in cash on hand as of the June 30 FEC deadline. A review of his itemized receipts shows his donor base is tilted more toward institutional money than most incumbents in this series:
Political action committees account for about $336,000 of itemized giving — narrowly outpacing individual donors — across 187 separate contributions from 118 different PACs.
Individual donors contributed roughly $303,000, with just over 55% coming from Maryland residents and the remainder from out of state, much of it from the Washington, D.C. area.
Labor union PACs — including the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, the electrical workers’ and letter carriers’ unions, and several building-trades unions — contributed about $67,500.
Defense and aerospace PACs, including Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada Corporation, contributed roughly $47,000.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s political action committee gave $5,000 directly to Ivey’s campaign committee in this reporting period, the maximum a multicandidate PAC can give for a single election under federal law.
“Political action committees account for about $336,000 of itemized giving — narrowly outpacing individual donors.”
That last item matters more in this race than it might elsewhere, because Ivey’s AIPAC support is the entire premise of his Green Party challenger’s campaign.
On the spending side, Ivey’s campaign paid nearly $100,000 to a single fundraising consulting firm, spent about $60,000 on campaign management consulting, and made a $50,000 unlimited transfer to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in March. The campaign also spent roughly $49,000 on a media buy with a national Democratic consulting firm and about $20,000 on database services.
George McDermott (R) — The Republican Nominee
McDermott, of Forest Heights, is in his late 70s and has run for this seat or its predecessor in some form in nearly every cycle since the 1990s, reaching the general election against two different Democratic incumbents along the way. He lost to Anthony Brown 74% to 21% in 2016 and 78% to 20% in 2018, lost to Brown again in 2020, missed the general election in 2022 after losing the Republican primary, then returned to face Ivey in 2024 and lost 88.7% to 11.3%. He describes his professional background as decades of work in contracting and development. State election records show no campaign committee registered for his candidacy.
McDermott’s candidate-submitted answers in local voter guides over multiple cycles have included unconventional legal theories about federal law and the nature of government office, material that is a matter of public record through his own questionnaire responses to outlets including the Baltimore Sun and iVoterGuide.
“Ivey’s AIPAC support is the entire premise of his Green Party challenger’s campaign.”
Sam Husseini (Green) — The Left Flank Challenge
The more unusual story in MD-4 this year is Sam Husseini, an independent journalist and the communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes progressive analysts as sources for reporters. Husseini, who lives in Riverdale and has spent the past two years confronting U.S. and Israeli officials over the war in Gaza — he was removed from a State Department briefing room in January 2025 and from a National Press Club event featuring Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer more recently — secured the Green Party’s nomination in early August after forming an exploratory committee in July.
Husseini has built his campaign entirely around Ivey’s ties to pro-Israel donors, referring to the congressman publicly as “AIPAC Ivey.” That framing has real history behind it: the Washington Post reported that AIPAC-aligned spending topped roughly $6 million in the 2022 Democratic primary to help Ivey defeat then-incumbent Donna Edwards, a fight that made national news at the time. Husseini has acknowledged in his own public writing that he isn’t likely to defeat Ivey in a heavily Democratic district while running outside the two-party system, framing the campaign instead as a way to put that history in front of voters on a ballot rather than only in commentary. His campaign committee shows no reported fundraising activity as of the June 30 filing deadline, consistent with a campaign that only formally launched weeks ago.
“Husseini has acknowledged that he isn’t likely to defeat Ivey, framing the campaign instead as a way to put that history in front of voters on a ballot.”
What to Watch
“What’s less settled is how Husseini’s single-issue campaign affects the numbers on Ivey’s side of the ledger.”
MD-4’s Cook PVI and its recent general election results are part of the public record voters can weigh for themselves. What’s less settled is how Husseini’s single-issue campaign affects the numbers on Ivey’s side of the ledger, and whether McDermott’s decades of running in this district translate into a similar share of the vote as his past attempts. Both are open questions heading into November, separate from the district’s underlying partisan lean.
Sources:Candidate filings and status are drawn from the Maryland State Board of Elections 2026 general election candidate list. Campaign finance totals, itemized Schedule A receipts, and itemized Schedule B disbursements are drawn from FEC filings covering the period through June 30, 2026, filtered to the current two-year election cycle; itemized totals exclude memo-coded entries to avoid double-counting earmarked and re-attributed contributions. District partisan lean (Cook PVI D+39) and district demographics are from Wikipedia’s entry for Maryland’s 4th congressional district and Ballotpedia. The 2024 general election result (Ivey 88.7%, McDermott 11.3%) and the 2016 and 2018 results for the seat are from NBC News election results, Ballotpedia, and the Baltimore Sun. Rep. Ivey’s biography and committee assignments are confirmed via his official House website and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Avoice digital library. McDermott’s voter guide responses are drawn from the Baltimore Sun’s 2024 candidate questionnaire and iVoterGuide. Background on Sam Husseini is drawn from his own published writing, Wikipedia, and reporting by JNS and the Cleveland Jewish News. Reporting on AIPAC-aligned spending in the 2022 Democratic primary is from the Washington Post.
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