Del. Sheree Sample-Hughes is no stranger to feeling like she’s on an island.

She’s the only Democrat in the General Assembly who represents the Eastern Shore. Before getting elected to the legislature in 2014, she had been the lone Democrat on the Wicomico County Council.

And last week she was the one Democrat in the House of Delegates to vote against a bill that would further gerrymander Maryland’s congressional districts in favor of her own party.

It had been clear for months, even through a change in leadership, that the Democratic-controlled Maryland House would vote in favor of Gov. Wes Moore’s proposal for mid-cycle redistricting. Moore and leaders in the House have said redistricting is the best way to fight President Donald Trump and save American democracy.

So why did Sample-Hughes break with her fellow Democrats in this dire hour?

Because voting “no” was the right thing to do, she said. Sample-Hughes said she often fields requests from Democrats living in Republican districts on the Eastern Shore because they feel like she is the only person in Annapolis who will be receptive to their needs.

The map her colleagues in the House passed would make it very difficult for Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican in Congress, to win reelection. Of the roughly 4.3 million registered voters in Maryland, 1 million are Republicans, and they could be left without representation of their own.

“We have Republicans in every part of the state, every district, no matter how small or how large it is, and so I didn’t think that it behooves us to move in that fashion,” Sample-Hughes said.

But Sample-Hughes did not cast her vote out of respect to Harris — “He won’t even speak to me, I don’t mind you writing that,” she said.

Actually, she said, it would be good if a Democrat could run against Harris and beat him. Given what’s going on with the Trump administration and in Congress, she added, it is an opportune time to “galvanize” voters against Republicans at the ballot box.

Her “no” vote last week was not the first time she’s butted up against the Democratic establishment in Annapolis, either. For five years, Sample-Hughes was the speaker pro tem, the second-most powerful member of the House, but fell out of favor in 2023 after clashing with former House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones.

At the time, Sample-Hughes told Maryland Matters that Jones removed her from the role in part because of her voting record. Sample-Hughes voted against key pieces of Democratic legislation in 2023, including a bill to expand gender-affirming health care and another to strengthen gun control.

It’s something of a faux pas when Democrats, especially high-ranking ones, cross lines and vote with Maryland’s Republican minority. But Sample-Hughes, who described herself as a conservative Democrat, said she’s just being true to herself and to her home.

“I can’t change where I grew up,” she said. “I grew up in Salisbury. I live there, raised my own family there.”

Other Democrats from Sample-Hughes’s home turf share similar views. Wicomico County Councilwoman Shanie P. Shields, who has known Sample-Hughes since the delegate was a little girl and was even schoolmates with Sample-Hughes’ mother, described her own politics as being fairly moderate.

Recently, for example, Shields said she voted against a local bill to make it easier for businesses to obtain a liquor licenses because she was concerned about the impact easier access to alcohol could have in poor neighborhoods.

Shields sits in Sample-Hughes’ former County Council seat and will sometimes call the much younger delegate for advice, which usually ends up “right on the money.” She praised her delegate’s ability to look at issues independently and make votes based on what her constituents would want.

“You’re supposed to work for the people who voted you in, not the Democratic Party or Republican Party,” Shields said, adding that, “You’ve got to be bipartisan.”

More elected officials, especially those in Washington, Shields said, should try to work together on issues. Perhaps Sample-Hughes could head to the nation’s capital and give them a show?

“I’d like to see her run for Congress to tell you the truth,” Shields said.