Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson beat Bobby LaPin in Tuesday’s Democratic primary to represent a Baltimore state Senate district stretching from Brooklyn to Canton, according to the Associated Press.
Early voting, limited mail-in ballots and all 55 Election Day precincts reporting showed Ferguson with double-digit lead over LaPin. Ferguson declared victory around 10 p.m.
For the last two months, Ferguson was forced to do something he hadn’t done in 16 years: campaign. LaPin, a charter boat captain and social media influencer, was Ferguson’s first real opponent since 2010, when Ferguson was the newcomer who took on and beat incumbent Sen. George Della Jr.
But, once Ferguson found his footing, he pushed the pace until the very end. His campaign manager Alli Smith said in early May their goal was to crush their opponent.
“This campaign humbled me,” Ferguson said. “I wanted the work to speak for itself. But it does not. You have to show up. You have to explain it. Over and over.”
LaPin and his team were unmoved by Ferguson declaring vicotry earlier in the night Tuesday. As LaPin socialized with some of the stragglers at his watch party, he took a few moments to address what he thought was a preemptive move.
“It’s the status quo of the status quo, stepping on the necks of the working people,” LaPin said. “It’s disrespectful to every person in this city.”
His campaign manager, Alecsandra Roe, was more defiant.
“Ferguson has treated this election as he has his tenure in office: He sees it as something that isn’t based in the lives or voices of real people,” Roe said. “The gap is closing with every batch — he’s covered up campaign signs, intimidated people, and hoped no one would protest because they’re afraid of his retribution. We are not afraid, and we look forward to every vote being counted."
LaPin mounted a vigorous campaign full of bluster and confidence. For months he had been in Ferguson’s head, often putting the Senate president on his back foot.
LaPin railed against Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. rates, telling his legion of online followers that Ferguson was in the pocket of the utility and other corporations.
He sent electorate-specific signals, rejecting corporate donations and political action committee money while Ferguson raked in donations by the thousands. Ferguson had forgotten the people he was elected to serve, LaPin would say. Here was an everyman, ready to represent everyone. Except social media likes and interactions don’t directly translate to votes.
In reality, the scales were always imbalanced in Ferguson’s favor. He controls the flow of state money and determines which laws are passed. The city relies on a lopsided state highway revenue formula to balance its books and that formula expires this year.
City leadership campaigned for him in droves, from Mayor Brandon Scott to members of City Council. Zeke Cohen, the Council President, started making the case for Ferguson as early as March, when the legislature was still in session but LaPin’s insurgent campaign was well underway.
“If he were to lose his seat, Baltimore would lose an enormous amount of influence” Cohen said then.
While Ferguson represents a sliver of Baltimore, his power extends to all corners of the state. He has a say in who gets appointed to the Maryland Stadium Authority; he can order his caucus to approve or disapprove of agency heads. Little happens in government without him.
Still, there was reason to believe he was vulnerable.
Progressives, a significant portion of Ferguson’s district, had felt scorned by him. Key legislation around immigration and juvenile justice reform had stalled in the Senate.
And then, in the fall, Ferguson took a highly unpopular position when he came out against mid-cycle congressional redistricting, bucking Gov. Wes Moore and two different Maryland House of Delegates speakers. The rift with Moore kept widening, spilling over into the public and Moore opted not to endorse Ferguson.
LaPin had his opening, but the same things that he spun as being in his favor also worked against him.
His approach to politics, espousing big ideas but fumbling with the minutia of government, along with his usual appearance in a hoodie, flip-flops and an ever-present Orioles hat, could be seen as too casual. Whereas Ferguson, clean-shaven and always dressed professionally, was known for his wonkish policy insights and an almost unparalleled familiarity with the issues.
Consider a May forum in Locust Point, when the crowd, already skeptical of LaPin, asked the two candidates what they would do about Maryland’s emergency room wait times, which are the highest in the nation and nearly double the country’s average. LaPin reacted as if it were the first he’d ever heard of the issue.
Then an audience member asked the candidates what, if anything, they could do to expedite the Key Bridge rebuild. Moore had recently canceled the contract with the bridge builder, citing unexpected cost overruns and timeline delays. Ferguson took the moment to explain why Moore, who he has butted heads with repeatedly this year, made a smart move. The federal government was paying for the bridge thanks to Congress, he said, and the state had a duty to build it at a reasonable cost.
When LaPin took the microphone, he went in a decidedly different direction. He suggested that the bridge was now delayed and over budget because Ferguson had been too busy blocking congressional redistricting. Then he suggested that the state, not the federal government, should pay for it.
“We have to remember this. We live in one of the richest states in the richest country in human history. Maryland has the money to do what it wants to do, as long as we make the right choices about how we spend that money,” LaPin said.
LaPin’s fundraising strategy of eschewing corporate donations left him in a massive hole. Ferguson, with less than two weeks to go in the election, had roughly $30 for every $1 of LaPin’s.
Lacking LaPin’s online presence and natural charisma, Ferguson used that money to plaster his face and message everywhere. His TV commercials were inescapable. His signs were omnipresent. His mailers piled up in people’s homes to the point of annoyance — every letter LaPin sent or door-hanger his campaign left was countered by what seemed like a dozen from Ferguson and the entities that backed him.
Weeks ago, LaPin said in an interview with The Banner that he’d bought his boat as a means to escape the “dark things” in his past. “The boat business was my peace,” he said. “No more negative stuff in my life.”
Running for office, LaPin’s third unsuccessful attempt at doing so, had cost him that peace, he admitted. And it had cost him financially. He’d given up the charter tour business to focus on his campaign. He said that he and his wife had maxed out their credit cards.
Banner reporter Jasmine Vaughn-Hall contributed to this article.
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