Can Democrats expand their majority in Anne Arundel County?

Eight years ago, Democrats in Anne Arundel County rode a national “blue wave” and flipped a County Council district, securing a 4-3 majority.

Allison Pickard, the Democrat who flipped that seat, is now running for county executive — and the party is aiming to secure a supermajority on the council by flipping District 5, which includes Arnold and Severna Park.

Assuming the other races hold true to past form, flipping District 5 would give the Democrats even more control. Five council votes are required to override vetoes by the county executive, redraw council district lines or propose amendments to the county charter. It takes five votes to amend or suspend the council’s rules.

Natalie Ogilvie, the Democrat running in District 5, is a first-time candidate hoping to unseat Amanda Fiedler, a popular Republican first elected in 2018.

Voter registration data for District 5 shows the parties are basically even, though with a large contingent of unaffiliated voters. At the time of the 2024 presidential election, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats by just five people: 24,041 to 24,036. And 16,485 registered voters there reported no party affiliation.

“I think it’s a play in the unaffiliated,” Ogilvie said in an interview. “I think that’s where we land the strongest.”

Democrats, she said, showed they were motivated to come out and vote during the primary election. Republicans who are “not MAGA,” she said, seem to be either staying home or crossing party lines to vote.

But Fiedler said her record of focusing on local issues and not getting bogged down in the national discourse resonates with voters.

She’s promised constituents that she won’t raise taxes. She said she wants to find creative solutions to her district’s oversaturated roads and the strain on the local power grid — pointing to her vote on a January bill allowing battery energy storage facilities in certain zoning districts. The bill passed unanimously in April.

In most cases, Fiedler said, she doesn’t want to speak on issues confronting other levels of government: “It’s taking my time away from the issues in front of me that I have to vote on.”

Republican candidates in Maryland face headwinds, said Dan Nataf, a political scientist and professor at Anne Arundel Community College, because of the national political climate. Voters are angry at President Donald Trump, and polls show Republican voters are less enthusiastic about turning out to the polls.

But Fiedler is an eight-year incumbent who enjoys broad popularity, Nataf said.

For Democrats, he said, “that’s the problem. She has had many occasions to define herself as a human being, and not just a party label.”

Though plenty of County Council votes are bipartisan, the majority party could work with or against the county executive’s agenda and budget and drive policy.

Colten Watrous, Pickard’s campaign manager, said the team was confident and was seeing high Democratic mail-in ballot returns in Anne Arundel County and District 5.

In an email, Watrous said the campaign is confident that unaffiliated voters are leaning toward Democrats’ message of “a results-oriented government, as we all share the same goals of thriving schools, fully resourced first responders, and a more affordable Anne Arundel County.”

While she won by a few thousand votes in both 2018 and 2022, Fiedler doesn’t assume that this will be an easy election to win.

Over the last two terms, Fiedler said, she’s seen more resolutions focused on what the federal government is doing come before the council, such as a 2022 measure opposing the overturning of Roe v. Wade and another in 2023 urging Congress to enact stronger firearm restrictions. She abstained from both votes.

To Ogilvie, such abstentions indicate that Fiedler’s not willing to stand up for residents. Ogilvie said she was “extremely concerned” when Fiedler abstained from a council vote on a resolution condemning the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The matter was one reason she wanted to run for office.

“I felt like I wasn’t being represented,” Ogilvie said.

Ogilvie also criticized Fiedler for voting against the county budget and its school funding for 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2025 — which Fiedler contended would force the county to raise taxes — and for not doing enough to support residents of Anne Arundel County targeted by immigration enforcement.

The “last straw” for Ogilvie was seeing how the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement. As an immigrant herself, Ogilvie said she felt like Fiedler wasn’t standing up for “people who are being taken by ICE.”

“I felt that I needed to jump in,” Ogilvie said. “I saw her values didn’t match the values of our council district.”

Fiedler explained that she abstains when she doesn’t feel confident enough in the information she’s received before the council meeting and when it’s not really a local matter. On the resolution about the events of Jan. 6, she said she opposed inserting the council into matters being deliberated by Congress.

“I have a personal policy to let our federal authorities work through what they need to do,” Fiedler said.

Fiedler said she instead wanted to condemn political violence of any kind in a broader statement and will continue to do so in the wake of several of Maryland’s congressional representatives receiving letters containing a suspicious substance last week.

“Showing unity despite our differences is important,” she said.