A proposed new map of Maryland’s congressional districts would wipe out Republicans’ advantage in the one seat they hold, swinging the voter makeup from solidly red to solidly blue.
The Eastern Shore-based 1st Congressional District would lose voters in Cecil and Harford counties and gain liberal voters in Anne Arundel and Howard counties.
The result: A district that favored President Donald Trump in the last election by 17 points would shift to one that would have favored Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by 14 points, according to a Banner analysis of precinct-level voter records.
That voter makeup would make it significantly more challenging for the 1st District’s U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, to win reelection. He is the sole Republican among the eight-member House delegation from Maryland.
“It’s painfully obvious these districts were drawn with one purpose and only one purpose: to create eight Democratic districts in Maryland,” said Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “The one purpose is to eliminate a Republican seat in response to what Republicans started doing in Texas.”
Andy Harris slammed the map and Gov. Wes Moore in a statement after the governor’s redistricting advisory commission selected the map and forwarded it to the Maryland General Assembly for consideration.
“Wes Moore’s partisan gerrymandering commission lived up to their name,” Harris said in a statement.
Moore, a Democrat, has defended the map as one that reflects what Marylanders want.
“I think the maps that were released is something that is not just going to make our congressional maps more competitive, but it’s also something that actually is the will of the people,” the governor told reporters this week.
In swinging the 1st Congressional District from red to blue, the map makes the 3rd Congressional District less solidly blue.
In 2024, the 3rd District — mainly composed of Howard County and part of Anne Arundel — gave Kamala Harris a 24-point margin over Trump.
But under the proposed map, the 3rd would lose a group of Howard and Anne Arundel voters who favored Kamala Harris by 40 points to the 1st District. The 3rd would then pick up all of Cecil and Harford counties, which together favored Trump by 18 points, among other voters.
The 3rd District is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a Democrat who lives in Annapolis. Her home would be shifted from the 3rd District to the 1st District.
“After the Republican Party’s mid-cycle redistricting in Texas, I’m more than ready to run in, win in, and serve in any district the Maryland General Assembly draws,” Elfreth said in a statement shortly after the map was released. “But ultimately the decision doesn’t lie in my hands.”
Moore urged the General Assembly to vote on the map, saying in an interview on MS NOW: “My push is that they debate the maps. They can make adjustments if they see so fit. But then take the vote.”
The proposed map faces a major hurdle in the General Assembly: Senate President Bill Ferguson.
While House of Delegates Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk intends to bring the proposed map to a vote in her chamber, Ferguson remains firmly opposed.
Eberly, the political science professor, predicted the proposed map would be “dead on arrival” in the state Senate.
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