Amar Mukunda ousted the Senate majority leader. Now he wants to reform Annapolis.

Amar Mukunda said he tapped into a “deep well of dissatisfaction” during his campaign against one of Maryland’s most powerful lawmakers.

“People fundamentally do not understand how frustrated the vast majority of Marylanders are, and probably the vast majority of Americans are, with the lack of progress and action from government,” said Mukunda, an Army Reserve combat engineer and former assistant director of the violence intervention group Roca.

Mukunda, 33, defeated Majority Leader Nancy King in his first bid for public office. He campaigned against the state Senate’s “Democratic establishment” and accused its leaders of lacking the courage to stand up to President Donald Trump.

But to accomplish his ambitious agenda, he’ll have to forge relationships with those he has criticized. He’ll also be replacing a powerful figure in Annapolis known for securing state investments for her district.

His supporters welcome his youthful energy and promise to upend politics as we know it in Annapolis. But others worry that District 39, which covers Gaithersburg, Germantown, Clarksburg, Montgomery Village and Washington Grove, is about to lose clout in the State House.

“She had influence, and she was able to get things done and bring back funding for various projects in her district,” said Gino Renne, president of Montgomery County’s major public sector union, which endorsed King. “Now, that has all been lost.”

Mukunda, though, said there’s more at stake than funding for local projects.

“The bigger picture is the fate of our democracy,” he said.

Change agenda

Mukunda burst onto the political scene with his decisive victory, perhaps the biggest surprise of Maryland’s June primary. No Republicans filed to run, so he’ll bypass the November general election and be sworn in come January.

He campaigned for change, faulting Senate leaders for opposing midcycle redistricting and accusing them of failing to protect immigrants from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during their 2025 session.

That was a “true failure of leadership” on both issues, he said. “I don’t think there’s any getting around that.” (The Senate’s stances on these issues have since shifted.)

He wants less money in politics, state intervention on Medicaid and better transportation options for his district, including an expansion of the Metro to Germantown.

He’ll arrive as the youngest state senator since the election of Sarah Elfreth — now a member of Congress.

Richard Parsons, former Maryland Democratic Party executive director, supported King but said Mukunda has the “potential to be an up-and-coming leader.”

“It won’t happen immediately, but I think he’s got the right skill set to be successful — if not taking Nancy’s place right away, at least over time filling some of the gap that her absence will leave," said Parsons, who lives just outside the district.

Mukunda’s policy positions may put him at odds with Senate leaders, though he said he’ll have powerful ideological allies in Gov. Wes Moore and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who oversees a more progressive chamber.

But he will need support from his fellow senators to advance his priorities and obtain funding for projects in his district, especially in a session that will likely be dominated by a projected budget shortfall.

“I hope, as someone who has never held elective office before, that Amar is ready to listen and learn,” said Sen. Cheryl Kagan, whose district borders Mukunda’s.

Mukunda said he’s placing a premium on relationships with his new colleagues and plans to speak with the 33 other Senate Democrats before the 90-day session in January.

“I’m not going to agree with people on some key issues,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t respect them as people. That doesn’t mean we can’t work together and get stuff done.”

Who is Amar Mukunda?

Mukunda, a Gaithersburg resident, was raised in Montgomery County by immigrant parents.

His paternal grandfather emigrated from India to work on transit projects in Baltimore and D.C., including the construction of Glenmont Metro station. His mother fled conflict and corruption in Pakistan as a young woman and settled in the area.

Mukunda’s parents started a telecommunications company in the late 1980s to help people call friends and family in other countries. After initial success, the company went bankrupt in 2001.

Mukunda said he got to see “the best and worst of what our county has to offer” as his family’s finances took a hit, forcing them to move several times and live rent-free with friends for three years.

“Living with that instability, it really shaped, I think, who I am as a person, and it obviously drove me to work super, super hard,” Mukunda said.

He went on to study computer science at Amherst College and won a Fulbright scholarship to research artificial intelligence and machine learning.

He said his interest in elected office was sparked while working for Roca. He and others from the organization would lobby in Annapolis for funding to expand their violence prevention programs.

“We were pretty sophisticated, and it was really hard for us as a community organization to navigate the process,” he said.

With elected office still in mind, Mukunda left Maryland to study energy and infrastructure engineering as a graduate student at Stanford University.

Then Trump won reelection.

“I moved back home to Montgomery County with the idea of like, OK, I want to get directly involved,” he said. “I want to run.”

Mukunda initially filed to run for one of three state delegate seats in the district, but in November withdrew and refiled to challenge King.

“Nancy King was a much, much better foil than being in a six-way race,” said Ben Ross, a local transit advocate who supported Mukunda.

A generational shift

Even Mukunda’s critics say he was a tireless campaigner.

As an Army reservist, he was able to pour himself into the race, door-knocking throughout the district for months.

He said that money in politics is his top issue and pointed to the Democratic Senate Caucus Committee, which supports incumbents’ campaigns and accepts money from lobbyists, healthcare companies and utility providers.

“Those are the companies that are driving up our costs,” he said. “It’s like, the Senate Democrats, who are supposed to be on our side, what are we doing?”

Mukunda credits his grassroots campaign — free of contributions from corporate PACs and lobbyists — for his victory. He said he didn’t hire consultants, conduct polls or receive endorsements from unions or fellow politicians.

Nearly half of Mukunda’s campaign funding came from outside the state, according to the State Board of Elections.

Among his top donors are two from Miami and one from New York. His contributors also live in California, Washington and other states.

He also accepted donations from family and a large contribution from the PAC for the Sierra Club’s Maryland’s chapter.

Mukunda said his out-of-state contributions came from people who grew up in Montgomery County but moved away and from others he met at Amherst and Stanford.

Mukunda plans to play “the inside game” — establishing relationships with the lawmakers, lobbyists and others who frequent the State House. But he said that won’t be enough.

“I want to mobilize and engage our entire community so that we, as a grassroots movement, are coming to Annapolis to get things done,” he said.

King said that trust and relationships determine a lawmaker’s effectiveness, and that it takes time for newcomers to show they can be relied upon.

“You can go into Annapolis with the greatest idea in the world for legislation and for change that needs to be made,” she said. “If your colleagues can’t trust you, or if you have not taken the time to make some real relationships, you don’t get anything done.”

Mukunda has praised King for decades of service and leadership, but said that District 39 still needs better schools, roads and transit.

“It’s time for a different approach,” he said. “Not just a different person.”