Democrats flip Frederick County district, defeating state Sen. Folden

Maryland Democrats declared another election victory Saturday: Democrat Lara Westdorp over Republican state Sen. Bill Folden in Frederick County.

As a retired police officer and sheriff’s deputy, Folden brought a conservative law-and-order perspective to the Senate. On the Judicial Proceedings Committee, where thorny issues of criminal justice are debated, he often clashed with more liberal members.

Folden was elected to the Maryland Senate in 2022 and previously served a term in the House of Delegates.

Westdorp was a chief of staff to former state Sen. Ron Young and has served on county government boards. She owns a Frederick reflexology business, a type of therapy that applies pressure to specific places on the body, such as feet.

Westdorp, in a statement Saturday morning, acknowledged there are still more ballots to count, but expressed confidence that she’ll be the winner.

“I am humbled by the number of voters that chose to trust me to be their voice in Annapolis,” Westdorp wrote. “This win clearly demonstrates the power a community wields by coming together to fight for their futures.”

Folden said he planned to call Westdorp and concede the race.

Folden said he had no regrets about how he served in office or how he ran the race. He believes he was swept up in the frustrations with President Donald Trump. Voters, he said, cast their ballots as “a repudiation of Trump and his policies.”

“It wasn’t a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami,” Folden said. “There was nothing that me or the team that I ran with could have done differently.”

Folden said he’s ready to move on, saying he was “never defined by the title” of senator.

“It was an opportunity to make things better for my home community and for Maryland, and we fell short this time,” he said.

Folden described his last session in Annapolis as miserable.

In the final hours of the legislative session, Folden got into a discussion with the Senate chief of staff that became so heated that Senate President Bill Ferguson sent a state trooper to intervene. Folden had been frustrated over legislation about the Frederick sheriff’s salary and said Ferguson had broken his word over the legislation.

Folden said he’s disappointed that Republican voices in Annapolis may be more diminished than they already are.

“Maryland is facing significant challenges and there’s going to be a lot of pain points on Marylanders who just voted to add more bodies to the super-majority,” Folden said.

Westdorp’s victory grows the Democratic majority in the Senate to 35 members out of 47.

Several races in the House of Delegates are still uncalled as ballot-counting continues, but Democrats are likely to expand their majority there, too.

The Senate Democratic Caucus, which pools money and resources from Democratic senators and candidates, backed Westdorp’s campaign.

Westdorp also had support from a new slate founded by Democratic women senators. The slate said the majority of the $175,000 it raised went to support Westdorp.

“As senators with a proven track record of winning campaigns, we knew that talented women sometimes need the resources and support to compete,” said Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Montgomery Democrat and one of the slate organizers. “We also recognized a strong candidate in Frederick County that others might have overlooked.”