As primary looms, Montgomery County candidates agitated over campaign ads

In the days before the primary, some of the most heated exchanges among Montgomery County candidates are not about the issues, but about campaign ads.

A $232,000 television ad targeting Montgomery County Council member and county executive candidate Will Jawando, for example, still rankles his supporters nearly a month after it was first broadcast.

Council member Kristin Mink has taken to social media to protest a mailer sent out by the campaign of county executive candidate Evan Glass, which she said undermines her and Jawando.

And Glass has expressed displeasure over a mailer in which Friedson describes himself as the only candidate to vote against raising taxes in the past several years.

In each case, candidates accuse their critics of stretching or even subverting the truth. That’s to be expected, said Sam Novey, chief strategist with the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.

“There’s a line between stacking up a bunch of things that are true to tell a particular story and actually saying something that’s misleading,” he said. “Campaigns can get close to that line, and reasonable people can disagree about that.”

Three council members are among five people vying for county executive, and 10 of the 11 seats on the council are contested in the June 23 primary. Here are some of the ads that have caused a stir.

Big money on TV

The anti-Jawando TV ad blames him for the higher cost of living and challenges his work on the council’s Education and Culture Committee.

“As Trump slashed jobs, Jawando made life more expensive,” says the unseen narrator of the ad, who cites Jawando’s support for tax increases in 2025 and 2026. “Say no to Jawando.”

The ad is sponsored by the Affordable Maryland Political Action Committee, which is supported by the real estate and tech sectors. The PAC, which said it stands by the ad, has not endorsed a candidate. But it has spent more than $966,000 on ads opposing Jawando and more than $80,000 on ads opposing at-large council member Evan Glass. District 1 council member Andrew Friedson is also a top contender for the county executive job.

While Friedson has received financial support from developers — some of whom are backing Affordable Maryland — he is not associated “whatsoever” with the PAC, his campaign manager John Block told The Banner.

During the 2022 election, the same group backed a campaign to oust County Executive Marc Elrich.

The anti-Jawando ad goes too far for many, including some candidates who haven’t endorsed Jawando, including County Council President Natali Fani-González, who endorsed Glass, and U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who has declined to make an endorsement in the race.

Van Hollen, in a May 27 video posted to X, said he was “sickened” by the ad’s distortion of Jawando’s record.

Jawando has put out his own ad pushing back on the Affordable Maryland ad.

“Power doesn’t concede without a fight,” Jawando says in a video that has run on TV and social media since May 31.

Jonathan Robinson, chair of the Affordable Maryland PAC that sponsored the anti-Jawando ads, told The Banner that they are grounded in facts.

“In the case of Will Jawando, we have real, sincere policy disagreements with him on several issues related to housing and tax policy as well as county governance, and we believe voters deserve to know that record before they vote.”

The Glass mailer

A mailer sent out by Glass calling for greater transparency in the Montgomery County Schools budgeting process upset some of Jawando’s allies — even though it doesn’t mention Jawando.

District 5 council member Kristen Mink, who is running for reelection, rebutted the ad in a June 9 video posted to social media.

She argued that the mailer “undermines” the work she and Jawando have accomplished on the Education and Culture Committee to increase the school system’s budget transparency, and shared clips of council meetings in which she and Jawando addressed the topic.

“You can now go on the MCPS website and view a line-item budget,” she said in the video. “We also spend all year on the Education and Culture Committee diving into those line items in detail.”

Glass defended the mailer.

“Everyone I speak with has expressed frustration about the MCPS budget processes, which is broken,” Glass told The Banner in an email. “The status quo isn’t working, which is the theme of my mailer and my policy proposals to fix it.”

The Friedson mailer

Glass has his own issues with mailers, and one put out by Friedson’s county executive campaign in particular.

That mailer declares that Friedson was the only candidate to vote against raising taxes over the past several years.

Glass argued that voting to finalize a budget that includes a tax increase is not the same as approving of a tax increase.

“In 2026, I voted against every tax increase and every tax change — then voted for the final budget, exactly as Friedson did in 2023,” Glass said in a statement.

In a straw vote last month, Glass, Friedson and Jawando all voted against eliminating a homeowner tax credit as part of the county budget. In a final, binding vote a week later, Friedson and council member Dawn Luedkte were the only council members to vote against passing the budget.

Friedson and his campaign have defended the mailers.

“The facts don’t lie, and voting records speak for themselves,” John Block, Friedson’s campaign manager, told The Banner in a statement. “While Andrew has a consistent, proven history of fighting for affordability and pushing back on tax hikes, his opponents offer only campaign spin.”

Novey, with the University of Maryland, said the latest research doesn’t offer much guidance to candidates trying to win over voters through ads.

“There’s not one right way to do a political ad that persuades people,” he said.

“Every election, you’ve got a unique set of forces and a unique sort of political context and a unique moment in time and unique set of candidates.”