Here on the Maryland Eastern Shore Democrats are taking a shot at two
seats in the state legislature this year.. Delmarva Public Media's Kevin Diaz takes a look at two bellwether districts.
There's only one Democrat serving the Maryland House of Delegates from the Eastern Shore: Sheree Sample-Hughes, who represents a largely minority district containing parts of Cambridge and Salisbury.
Democrats would like to make it two, focusing on a Wicomico County delegate race that is considered one of the closest in Maryland. Accordingly, it has attracted a lot of attention and money from across Maryland and even other states.
Democrats are placing their hopes on Josh Hastings, a Wicomico County Council member and lifelong resident raised on an Eastern shore poultry farm. The incumbent is Barry Beauchamp, a builder and assistant fire chief in Salisbury.
Beauchamp was appointed to the seat in 2024 after Republican delegate Carl Anderton Jr. left for a job in the Maryland Department of Commerce. Before Anderton, the district had been represented for nearly 30 years by a Democrat, Norman Conway, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
That history gives the district a slight Democratic lean, but both candidates are facing House District 38B voters for the first time.
Alarmingly, for both Beauchamp and Hastings, the tight race has been shadowed by an onslaught of attack ads and mailers, many from groups outside the district and even the state. Some depict the Democrat as “high-cost Hastings;” on the flip side, some depict Beauchamp as a MAGA conspiracist.
“Those mailers and that sort of thing, to me, it's certainly part of this entire process and I don't know why it has to be that way,” Beauchamp said at a recent candidate forum at Salisbury University. “I don't like it. It's one of my least favorite things, as far as this goes.”
Hastings agreed that the attacks are a distortion.
“Delegate Beauchamp is completely right,” he said. “We think this is ridiculous. We actually both talked on the phone the other day. We actually thought about trying to put together a joint statement on how absolutely ridiculous and stupid most of these outside mailers and all of the commercials and other kinds of things that have nothing to do with us…. One of them is from Texas. This isn't Texas. This is not anywhere near Texas. Why are people from Texas coming into our area?”
While Maryland Democrats see House District 38B as their best pickup opportunity on the Eastern Shore, they're also eyeing a state Senate seat held by Republican incumbent Johnny Mautz, a well-known St. Michaels bar owner.
Mautz served previously in the House of Delegates until 2022, when, as an acolyte of President Trump, he unseated moderate Republican Adelaide “Addie” Eckardt. Now Mautz is being challenged by first-time candidate Katie Clendaniel, a lifelong resident who has been involved in local business and community development in Cambridge.
Senate District 37, encompassing Dorchester, Talbot and half of Wicomico County has a strong Republican lean, but Democrats are hoping to activate a strong anti-Trump activist network in Cambridge and Easton. Whether that could flip the district remains to be seen.
“Definitely a little more of an uphill battle there, but I think Katie has the team behind her,” said Desmond Stuart of the Wicomico Democratic Central Committee. “She has the support of all the central committees here on the Shore. So I think she's doing what she can and what she needs to do to be successful.”
But Wicomico County Executive Julie Giordano, a rising star in the region's Republican Party, doesn't see a problem for Mautz:
“I think that (Clendaniel) is really catering to Democrats, and I think that she's forgetting about a lot of the Republicans. So Johnny has a lot of support here. I know that she's using his conservative voting record against him, but I think that is most appreciated here on the Shore. I think he'll end up pulling it out.”
Whatever the result, a change in either of these two districts would be a milestone in the region's political balance.
