Voters across the Delmarva region trekked to the polls Tuesday to decide a number of consequential races, none more closely watched than the congressional contest where eight-term Republican Andy Harris defeated Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz.
It was Harris’ closest margin of victory since his 2022 election win over Democrat Heather Mizeur. Both Mizeur and Schwartz, a consumer advocate running as a moderate, lost by the same 11-point margin.
But Maryland Democrats flipped one state house district on the Shore, with Wicomico County Council member Josh Hastings defeating Republican incumbent Barry Beauchamp for a seat in the House of Delegates. Hastings won by a comfortable margin of 58 percent to 42 percent.
Hastings will become only the second Democrat in the Eastern Shore delegation to Annapolis, joining Delegate Sheree Sample-Hughes, who is also the region’s only African American in the legislature. She ran unopposed in a largely minority district encompassing Cambridge and Salisbury.
In another closely watched Delaware state house race in Sussex County, incumbent Democrat incumbent Alonna Berry defeated Republican challenger Gene Dvornick, a Georgetown town manager and fire chief.
Maryland voters also passed a Democratic-backed ballot question to redraw Harris’ First Congressional District to weaken the GOP’s hold there. Many Republicans on the Eastern Shore saw it as a way to take away their voice in Congress. For many Democrats, the ballot measure, called Question 3, was a way to offset Republican gerrymandering in Texas and other states.
The statewide ballot measure was approved by a margin of 66 percent to 33 percent.
