All eyes are now on Maryland's First Congressional District. Longtime Republican incumbent Andy Harris is facing off against Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz. Delmarva Public Media's Kevin Diaz has this look at the contest.
Since he was first elected to Congress in 2010, Eastern Shore fixture Andy Harris has rarely had to break a sweat.
“The bottom line is I take care of all 11 counties in the district,” the Maryland Republican told Delmarva Public Media after a testy candidate forum in Cambridge Oct. 13. “I just visited Sharpstown today, Delmar, Hebron. People know I take care of all parts of the district and they're going to want to send me back to Washington.”
But viral videos of the encounter in Cambridge with Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz have brought national attention to a race that might otherwise have been viewed as another sleepy re-election for the eight-term conservative Republican.
His face reddening, Harris was seen scolding members of the audience and threatening to eject and prosecute a student reporter who was legally recording his post-debate press conference. The headlines were not kind, but Harris declined to back down.
Harris rode a Tea Party wave to power and now leads the far-right Freedom Caucus in the House, making him a national political figure. He's a staunch ally of President Trump, having taken part in GOP efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election.
Once an advocate of term limits, Harris now faces what could be his most spirited challenge as he seeks a ninth term in Congress. His latest Democratic challenger, Dan Schwartz, is a consumer advocate positioning himself as a moderate. Democrats hope he can ride a potential “blue wave” to unseat Harris.
But Schwartz says he's not banking on a predicted Democratic wave to end Harris' hold on Maryland's First Congressional District.
“It doesn't really factor into my calculations,” Schwartz said in an interview. “I cannot rely on Democrats alone. We’re outnumbered in this district. So even if every Democrat turned out and voted for me, it would be tough.
“So what I've really been focused on doing is connecting with, speaking with independent or unaffiliated voters, and also conservative voters across this district who are routinely introducing themselves to me as a concerned conservative, or telling me that the Republican Party does not fit them anymore.”
Schwartz talked to Delmarva Public Media shortly before the League of Women Voters Forum in Cambridge. In what has been their only head-to-head debate, they clashed on a host of issues, from the Iran War to offshore wind turbines.
Harris, in a brief interview, depicted Schwartz as a typical liberal Democrat:
“He's with the heavier hand of government. I'm not. He wants a lot of programs to spend money. But hasn't talked to us about how he's going to raise the money to pay for it.”
For his part, Schwartz brands himself as an outlier among establishment Maryland Democrats in Annapolis. A resident of rural Talbot County, he opposed Maryland’s recent restrictions on Glock semi-automatic pistols (he owns one himself) and said he will vote against Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s ballot measure to gerrymander the First District boundary lines to weaken Harris.
Still, Schwartz knows the race is an uphill climb. He continues to be vastly outspent by a better-known incumbent.
“I'm in a race against a corporate backed incumbent who served eight terms,” he said. “It's not the fact that I'm a Democrat. It's not some policy issue that's really the hardest challenge here. It's name recognition."
Widespread coverage of their clash in Cambridge might have helped raise Schwartz’s profile. The challenger sees his main path to victory through the growing ranks of independent voters, particularly in Harris' stronghold of Harford County, northeast of Baltimore.
It's also a fraught election year for many Republicans running in the shadow of an unpopular war and the uncertain economic impact of Trump's signature tariffs. One of the flash points in the Cambridge debate came when audience members laughed at Harris’ suggestion that high diesel prices are the fault of “liberal” environmental policies – ignoring the war in Iran, which has restricted the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, spiking prices worldwide.
“It's timing right now,” Schwartz said about the 2026 race. “It's this unique situation we're in as a country where it doesn't matter what political party you're in, whether you're a Democrat, you're an unaffiliated voter or you're a Republican. People can't afford to put the food on the table that they need for their families. They can't afford to put gas in their car or diesel in their trucks.”
Still, to Harris, Schwartz looks like just another in a line of Democratic challengers shown to be out of sync with the conservative Eastern Shore. He won his last election with nearly 60 percent of the vote.
“We're not going to see a blue wave in the First Congressional District,” Harris said.
Many pollsters agree. But Schwartz thinks the pundits might be selling his underdog campaign short, pointing to the district's modest eight-point generic Republican advantage.
“If we can't compete in an R+8 district, we are not going to have the size of a majority that we actually need to push back on the worst excesses of this administration,” Schwartz said. “So I think the party should be focused on a district like this right now. This isn't Mississippi, this isn't Alabama. We can flip a district like this.”
To be sure, a Schwartz upset would mark a historic blue wave. But that won't be known until November 3rd.
