Republicans lost every statewide race and ceded legislative and county seats as mail-in ballots kept coming in. The argument inside the party is now about who answers for it.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Maryland Republicans lost every statewide race on Nov. 3, and the damage did not stop at the top of the ticket. Democrats took legislative seats the GOP had held, flipped a county government on the Lower Shore, and pulled ahead in Frederick County races as mail-in ballots were counted. Inside the party, the conversation has moved from whether it was a bad night to who is accountable. The chairwoman, Nicole Beus Harris, was elected to lead the Maryland Republican Party in December 2022.
The party faced a hard national climate. It also went into the election with organizational gaps that the climate does not explain. By Election Day, Republicans had no candidate in 20 state Senate races and 22 House districts, according to Ballotpedia. In Howard County alone, the party had no candidate for county executive or four of the five County Council seats.
All results below are unofficial, are dated where possible, and are still changing.
The scoreboard
- Governor: Gov. Wes Moore won re-election with 1,395,173 votes, or about 64.6 percent, to Dan Cox’s 670,497, or about 31.1 percent, in the State Board of Elections’ unofficial results refreshed at 10 p.m. Nov. 12. Cox received 32.1 percent in the same matchup in 2022, according to FOX45.
- Comptroller and attorney general: Early unofficial tallies showed Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D) near 67 percent to Sonya Dunn’s (R) 33 percent, and Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) near 67 percent to James Rutledge III’s (R) 33 percent.
- State Senate: Democrat Lara Westdorp overtook Sen. Bill Folden (R-Frederick) in District 4, 30,640 votes to 28,495 in the unofficial count refreshed Nov. 12. Folden had led 52 percent to 48 percent on election night. Democrats declared victory Saturday, and Folden said he planned to call Westdorp to concede. The Banner reported the win lifts Senate Democrats to a projected 35 of 47 seats, pending certification.
- House of Delegates (unofficial, refreshed Nov. 10): Democrat Chuck Cook unseated Del. Stuart Schmidt Jr. in District 33B, 11,213 votes to 9,307. Democrat Josh Hastings beat Del. Barry Beauchamp in District 38B, 7,566 to 5,130. Both are in the State Board of Elections’ House returns.
- Counties: In Wicomico County, Democrat Ernest Davis defeated Republican County Executive Julie Giordano, and Democrats also took a majority of the County Council and the school board, The Banner reported. In Frederick County, Sheriff Chuck Jenkins lost his bid for a sixth term to Democrat Karl Bickel. In Howard County, Democrat Cat Carter flipped the western District 5 council seat, long considered a conservative stronghold, after Republican Ryan O’Connor conceded, The Banner reported.
Frederick County’s District 4 deserves its own look. In the House race, Democrats Jerry Donald (29,001) and Andrew Duck (28,225) were in position to win seats, with Republican Jesse Pippy (27,654) holding the third. Democrat Alleria Stanley (27,032) trailed Pippy by 622 votes, and Del. April Miller (R), at 26,750, was behind both. Pippy is the House Republican whip. The district is also where Democrats flipped the Senate seat.
Republicans did hold some ground. Harford County Executive Bob Cassilly won re-election, according to the AP. Republicans also appeared to keep both open state Senate seats they were defending, Districts 31 and 42. Rep. Andy Harris won another term and remains the delegation’s only Republican.
Empty lines on the ballot
The Maryland Democratic Party announced a “Contest Every Seat” campaign in October 2025. By March, it had a candidate in all 188 General Assembly races, the first time that has happened since 1974, The Baltimore Banner reported.
Republicans were not close to matching that. Before the June primary, Maryland Matters counted no Republican candidate in 20 of 47 Senate races and 52 of 141 House seats, or 72 of the 188 General Assembly seats. Ballotpedia’s tally as of Nov. 3 showed the same Senate picture: 20 Senate races with no Republican, and none without a Democrat. It listed 22 House districts with no Republican and none without a Democrat. Ballotpedia counts districts, not seats, and many House districts elect three members, so the two House figures are not the same measure. The district count also does not capture every recruitment shortfall. In multi-member House districts, a party can field some candidates without contesting every available seat, leaving additional opportunities unfilled.
Howard County shows how complete the gap can be. The Maryland State Archives’ returns show Republicans filed no candidate for county executive, four of the five council seats, sheriff, state’s attorney, register of wills or circuit court clerk. Among the county-level partisan offices listed in those returns, O’Connor was the only Republican candidate. He lost.
After the Feb. 24 filing deadline, Harris described the party’s own recruitment push, called Seat By Seat, as a “powerhouse team of candidates.” The February announcement celebrated the party’s recruitment effort. The November ballot is a measurable test of that claim, with Republicans absent from 20 Senate contests and 22 House districts. The numbers do not prove Seat By Seat accomplished nothing, but they give a concrete reason to ask what it did accomplish. An empty line on the ballot hands a seat to the other side before anyone votes.
The money
The gap was plain at the top of the ticket. In campaign finance reports covering June 8 through Aug. 18, Moore had $6.49 million in cash and no outstanding obligations. Cox had $136,092 in cash and $147,889 in obligations, mostly loans, according to FOX 5 DC’s review of State Board of Elections filings. That is an August cash-on-hand comparison, roughly 48 to 1, between two candidates’ campaign accounts. It is not a measure of what either state party invested.
Democrats also moved money down the ballot. By early September, Moore’s campaign had sent at least $1.2 million to Democrats in down-ballot races through mailers, rallies and direct transfers, The Banner reported. The Maryland Democratic Senate Caucus Committee sent a reported $488,399 in in-kind contributions to Sen. Shaneka Henson in District 30, according to Maryland Matters. A new group of Democratic women senators raised $175,000, and most of it went to Westdorp, the challenger who flipped Folden’s seat.
There are really three money operations to compare: the candidate campaigns, the state party committees, and the legislative caucus committees and outside groups. Earlier campaign finance reports already give a record of the Maryland Republican Party’s fundraising and spending. What is still missing is the closing stretch. Post-general reports are due Nov. 17 and cover Oct. 19 through Nov. 10.
That points to the question this article intends to follow when those filings arrive. How much money did the Maryland Republican Party spend recruiting candidates, building campaign infrastructure, supporting competitive legislative races, and turning out voters? And how did that compare with the operation Democrats built?
What the Democrats built
Recruitment was only the first step. Every Democratic candidate got state party help, and candidates in targeted “red to blue” districts received extra fundraising and training support, volunteer lists, and donor connections, The Banner reported in March. Moore campaigned across the state and sent money to down-ballot candidates. Maryland Democratic Party Chair Steuart Pittman said afterward that “red to blue really works.”
The Eastern Shore results show how long that kind of work takes. Jared Schablein, who founded what is now Shore Progress in 2017, told The Banner the effort in that region took about 10 years. Westdorp credited grassroots support and coordination among Democratic candidates for different offices, who handed out one another’s literature.
Local friction played a part in Wicomico, according to one of the winners. Democratic council member-elect Erin Patterson said voters were tired of infighting between the council and Giordano. Rep. Andy Harris also blamed Republican infighting for some of the party’s losses in Wicomico County, according to the Nov. 10 Spotlight on Maryland report as carried by WCBM. The same report noted that Harris lost Wicomico itself even as he won his congressional district.
Questions about the top of the ticket
Republican primary voters chose Cox, who won a crowded nine-candidate field with 43.3 percent, according to FOX 5 DC. After the general election, outgoing state Sen. Chris West (R) told FOX45 the party should have nominated someone with a better shot statewide and said it must “change course dramatically,” including replacing its leader. Former Gov. Larry Hogan called the results a “wake-up call,” said Republicans were out of touch with what voters care about, and urged elected officials to spend less time on social media and more time with constituents.
Political analyst Roger Hartley said a new chair could change the party’s message and culture, but that a leadership change alone would not fix its problems. He said Republicans need to compete beyond rural counties, noting that Democrats have been organizing in rural areas.
Harris declined to discuss internal party matters with the press, FOX45 reported. She said the party was focused on ballot canvassing and making sure every legal vote is counted. That is a reasonable priority this week. It does not answer the questions her own party’s officeholders are now raising.
She also moved to keep the party’s internal disagreements out of the press. According to a Spotlight on Maryland report published Nov. 10 by FOX45, Harris emailed party leaders after a social media post drew interview requests, telling them internal business should stay internal and arguing that public division would help Democrats. She followed with a one-question survey asking members whether the party should build a better relationship with the public rather than become news drama. Her spokesperson said party leadership agreed that speaking to the media “was not appropriate or productive.” The report did not name anyone who criticized her directly.
Harris is married to Rep. Andy Harris, the state’s only Republican member of Congress, and she was chosen as chair in December 2022 over Gordana Schifanelli and Tim Fazenbaker, WTOP reported at the time.
The legislative leaders
The calls for change are not confined to the state party chair. They reach the House Republican caucus too.
Del. Lauren Arikan of Harford County called on House Minority Leader Jason Buckel to step down, The Baltimore Sun reported. She argued that House leadership did not adequately support Dels. Stuart Schmidt and Barry Beauchamp, who both lost their seats.
MDBayNews separately reported on an email exchange from Nov. 4 and 5 in which retiring Del. Christopher Eric Bouchat (R-Carroll and Frederick) urged Buckel and Whip Pippy to back a citizen redistricting convention bill and to ask the caucus to elect new leadership. Del. Chris Tomlinson (R-Carroll and Frederick) pushed back, asking what made Bouchat think any other Republican could succeed where he had failed. Bouchat drew resignation calls from fellow Republicans this spring over his absences, and Arikan filed a resolution to expel him. That is fair context, and the leadership questions are still being raised from inside the caucus.
The state party and the legislative caucuses have different jobs. The party is responsible for statewide infrastructure, fundraising and coordination. Legislative caucus leaders and their campaign organizations also play central roles in recruiting candidates, raising money and directing support toward competitive legislative races. A fair accounting looks at both.
Did the party have a mail-ballot plan?
Frederick County shows why the question matters. In Senate District 4, Folden led Westdorp by 3,949 votes in the combined early and Election Day count, according to the State Board of Elections’ unofficial returns. Westdorp then gained 5,664 more votes than Folden from mail-in ballots, which turned his lead into a 1,715-vote deficit. Provisional ballots then added a net 430 votes for Westdorp, and the unofficial margin stood at 2,145 votes in the Nov. 12 refresh.
Statewide, more than 200,000 mail-in ballots were still uncounted as of Nov. 6, according to Maryland Matters. Close legislative and county races could still move until counting ends.
A bigger Democratic mail total does not by itself prove a Republican operational failure. Party registration, voter preference and ballot habits all contribute. But it raises questions the party can answer. Did the state GOP encourage mail voting, track ballot requests and returns, chase outstanding ballots, and help local candidates with voter contact? None of the reporting reviewed for this article says.
A hard national climate, and its limits
Republicans were swimming against a current. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, according to AP-based reports, and Folden himself called it a “blue tsunami” and blamed a repudiation of the president. Any fair accounting includes that. It explains part of the margin.
It does not explain a party that left more than a third of House seats and 20 Senate races without a candidate, by Maryland Matters’ count. The messaging is harder to blame on the weather, too. Harris said last October that Republicans would campaign on tax increases, the structural deficit and the state’s fiscal outlook in every jurisdiction. Westdorp said Frederick voters were motivated by affordability, a lack of jobs and a feeling that nobody was listening to them on data centers. Both parties were talking about pocketbook issues. Only one had a candidate in every seat.
The distinction that matters is between what leaders can control and what they can’t. No state chair can change Maryland’s Democratic registration advantage, the district maps or the national mood. Recruitment, candidate support, fundraising, coordination and voter contact are different. Those sit much closer to the party’s own decisions.
Who is accountable for the Republican operation?
Harris has chaired the party since December 2022. During that time, the party promoted Seat By Seat to expand Republican competition, yet the general-election ballot still had no Republican in 20 Senate races and in 22 House districts.
That raises plain questions about results. How many candidates did Seat By Seat recruit? How much help did they get? Which districts did party leaders see as realistic targets, and what progress did they make? Those answers would tell voters more than any statement about internal matters.
Responsibility does not rest with the chair alone. House and Senate caucus leaders, county central committees, campaign organizations and donors all play a part in building a party that can compete. A party also cannot rebuild only by appealing to registered Republicans. It needs a plan to reach unaffiliated voters, suburban moderates and disaffected Democrats who may be open to Republican alternatives, particularly in Frederick, Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties. And it needs a pipeline that produces candidates with local roots and campaign experience, not names filled in close to the deadline.
The question facing Maryland Republicans is not only whether to replace their chairwoman. It is whether the party has a statewide plan, whether that plan produced results in 2026, and whether its leaders are willing to explain what went wrong.
What to watch
- Nov. 17: Post-general campaign finance reports are due at the State Board of Elections, covering Oct. 19 through Nov. 10. They are the first full look at the closing stretch of party and legislative money.
- Certification: Final counts will settle the close legislative and county races, and the Senate composition remains projected until results are certified.
- Party leadership: The party’s release on its fall 2024 convention described Harris and the other officers as its 2025-2026 executive board. West has called for a change at the top, and Arikan has called for a change in the House.
- Unanswered questions: How many candidates Seat By Seat recruited and supported, and what the state party did on mail-ballot outreach.
- Question 3: Voters approved the amendment, which removed the state constitution’s boundary criteria for congressional maps. It does not itself redraw any district, and reporting by Maryland Matters indicated it would not apply before the 2028 election. With it in place, Republicans could face a new map drawn by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, and Moore has pushed for one. That raises a question for a party already struggling statewide: what is its strategy if Democrats pursue a map aimed at the state’s lone Republican congressional district?
Sources: FOX45 (WBFF), Mikenzie Frost, “Election results spark questions over Maryland GOP strategy,” Nov. 5, 2026. Maryland Matters (republished by News From The States), William J. Ford, “Handful of legislative seats shift, but General Assembly overall unchanged,” Nov. 4, 2026, and “Democrats pick up more legislative seats as mail-in ballots are counted,” Nov. 6, 2026. The Baltimore Banner, Pamela Wood, “Maryland Democrats met their goal to contest every State House race,” March 11, 2026; Oct. 13, 2025 report on the Contest Every Seat campaign; Nov. 4, 2026 report on Democratic flips; Nov. 7, 2026 report on Folden’s defeat; and November 2026 reports on Frederick and Howard County results. The Baltimore Banner, Lee O. Sanderlin, report on Moore campaign spending, Sept. 5, 2026. FOX45 with WJLA and The Baltimore Sun (Spotlight on Maryland), Gary Collins, “Moore effect?: Democrats, Republicans reject claim Wes Moore helped flip seats,” Nov. 10, 2026. The Baltimore Sun, Tinashe Chingarande, “Larry Hogan says he has no obligation to help Maryland GOP if members won’t listen,” Nov. 5, 2026, as republished by Yahoo News. FOX 5 DC, Jim Lokay, “Wes Moore holds nearly 48-to-1 cash advantage over Dan Cox in Maryland rematch,” Aug. 27, 2026. Baltimore Chronicle, John Newman, “Maryland election results 2026,” Nov. 4, 2026. Boston.com (AP), “Democrats have retaken control of the U.S. Senate,” Nov. 3, 2026. The Baltimore Sun, Nov. 5, 2026, on Democrats winning both chambers. Baltimore Magazine, Ron Cassie, “Moore Wins Second Term as Democrats Capture U.S. House and Senate in Blue Wave,” Nov. 4, 2026. Maryland Matters, “The (primary) winner takes all,” June 22, 2026. Maryland Republican Party statement, “MDGOP Celebrates ‘Powerhouse’ Team of Candidates Following 2026 Filing Deadline,” Feb. 25, 2026. Ballotpedia, “State legislative elections without a Democratic or Republican candidate, 2026,” data as of Nov. 3, 2026. Maryland State Archives, Howard County 2026 general election returns. WTOP, “Md. GOP taps congressman’s wife as new chair,” Dec. 2022. MDBayNews, “Bouchat to House GOP Leaders After Question 3: Own Citizen Redistricting, or Make Way for New Leadership,” Nov. 9, 2026. Maryland Matters, coverage of the House expulsion resolution and calls for Bouchat’s resignation, March and April 2026. WJLA/FOX45, “Maryland Question 3 explained,” 2026. WCBM News-Talk Radio, coverage of the Nov. 10 Spotlight on Maryland report on Rep. Andy Harris and Wicomico County. WBAL-TV, “Election Results: 2026 Maryland county executive races,” November 2026. Maryland State Board of Elections unofficial 2026 general election results for governor, State Senate District 4 and the House of Delegates (refreshed Nov. 10 and Nov. 12, 2026), and 2026 Gubernatorial Reporting Schedule. Maryland Republican Party release on its fall 2024 convention and its Dec. 10, 2022 leadership release.
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