Newcomer Amar Mukunda poised to oust Maryland’s Senate majority leader

Amar Mukunda, 33, was on the brink Wednesday of becoming Maryland’s latest breakthrough candidate, rising from political obscurity to defeat the state’s Senate majority leader in Tuesday’s primary election.

Mukunda, an Army Reserve combat engineer and former assistant director of the violence intervention group Roca, led Sen. Nancy King, 76, by about 1,100 votes as of Wednesday evening, a commanding lead in a race in which roughly 8,300 votes have been tallied.

The State Board of Elections had yet to post results of provisional ballots and some mail-in ballots.

The District 39 upset would alter Montgomery County’s profile in the General Assembly, where King has served for more than two decades and held sway as Senate majority leader since 2020.

In that role, she has helped shape the body’s priorities and joined Senate President Bill Ferguson when he opposed midcycle redistricting, a controversial stance that drew the ire of Gov. Wes Moore, who endorsed her nonetheless.

Mukunda said in a statement that he is waiting for the remaining ballots to be counted before potentially declaring victory.

In a statement, he thanked King for “a lifetime of honorable service to our community” and said “the initial results are clear: Marylanders are deeply frustrated with the status quo.”

He added, “it’s time for bold and decisive change.”

King didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Only Democrats filed to run for the seat. If Mukunda maintains his primary election lead, he’ll be sworn in in January.

Mukunda, who will be 34 by then, would arrive as the Senate’s youngest member. Since 2011, only Ferguson, then 27, and now-U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, then 30, were younger when they were sworn in.

He would also potentially have to navigate his differences with some of the chamber’s most powerful members. During his campaign, Mukunda faulted Senate leaders for opposing midcycle redistricting and accused them of failing to protect immigrants from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The legislature will likely take up redistricting before Mukunda is sworn in. Moore said Wednesday he expects a special session on the issue before the General Assembly convenes its annual 90-day session in January.

A changing district

David Lublin, a political science professor at American University and former mayor of Chevy Chase, said the primary results did not only reflect support for Mukunda.

“Nancy King did quite badly,” he said.

Lublin said sitting delegates, not newcomers, tend to be the biggest threats to state senators.

“I joke senators often look at delegates like the king of England looks at the Prince of Wales. Like, ‘when is he coming for me?’” he said. “But in this case it just seems clear that the electorate decided her time was past.”

Lublin noted that Mukunda ran to King’s left at a time when progressive voters are favoring “more strikingly progressive candidates.”

The trend held true in Montgomery County’s top race Tuesday. At large County Council member Will Jawando, the most progressive of the front-runners for county executive, held a seven-percentage-point lead in the closely watched race as of Wednesday evening.

Mukunda’s supporters have held him up as someone who will better represent the district’s diversity.

The demographics of District 39 — which covers Gaithersburg, Germantown, Clarksburg, Montgomery Village and Washington Grove — have shifted over the last few decades. U.S. Census data shows the area has become more racially diverse.

Shyamali Hauth, national endorsements director at South Asians for America, said the district has never had a South Asian representative, despite having one of the largest concentrations of the group in the state.

“That’s why we need Amar, who centers his outreach on ensuring he engages with every community in this district,” she said in a statement about Mukunda, who is the son of immigrants from India and Pakistan.

King has represented District 39 since 2003, after she first won election to the House of Delegates.

She became a senator in 2007 after the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee appointed her to fill a vacancy left by former Sen. Patrick “P.J.” Hogan, and she’s been the chamber’s majority leader since 2020.

King has survived close primaries before. In 2010, her first Senate campaign after being appointed, she won by fewer than 250 votes.

She ran unopposed in the 2014 and 2018 primaries, and she won more than 80% of the vote in 2022.

King entered the 2026 primary with powerful support, including from Moore. Most of the governor’s preferred candidates across the state prevailed in Tuesday’s primary.

Mukunda initially filed to run for one of three state delegate seats in the district. But in November he withdrew from the race to challenge King.

The redistricting fight

In a social media post announcing the move, Mukunda criticized Senate leaders for blocking redistricting, a tactic many supported to counter Republican-led redistricting in other states to carve out more red-leaning districts.

“The Democratic establishment in Maryland’s state Senate does not have the courage to fight back,” Mukunda said in the post.

The Senate, led by Ferguson, stood apart in opposing redistricting. Moore, with backing from the House of Delegates, pushed repeatedly for the legislature to adopt new maps.

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries traveled from Capitol Hill to Annapolis to speak with Ferguson about the matter.

But Ferguson didn’t budge.

Mukunda wasn’t the only first-time candidate who saw the redistricting battle as an opportunity to challenge Senate leadership.

Charter boat captain and social media influencer Bobby LaPin ran against the Senate president in the Democratic primary to represent the 46th District in Baltimore, framing his campaign as a referendum on the broader political system, which he criticized as controlled by corporations and developers.

Ferguson declared victory about two hours after polls closed Tuesday. The Associated Press later called the race in his favor.

But the race wasn’t the landslide that Ferguson’s team had hoped for. LaPin won about 43% of the more than 8,600 votes tallied as of Wednesday evening.