Maryland’s 6th Congressional District has been a Democratic stronghold for more than a decade, a section of the state stretching east from Cumberland to more urban Montgomery County that former congressman John Delaney flipped blue in 2012.
By Dana Munro
Democrat April McClain Delaney, who is married to the former congressman, is deadlocked with Republican Neil Parrott, despite her family ties to the district and a considerably larger campaign war chest.
The poll results released Thursday by Gonzales Research & Media Services show Parrott — a former state delegate who represented Washington County within the 6th Congressional District — with a two-point edge over Delaney. A fifth of those surveyed said they are still undecided. That disparity between candidates is within the 5.6-percentage-point margin of error in the poll that was conducted the last week of August.
“Parrott is performing very well with his GOP voters and is dipping into Delaney’s base at twice the rate she’s snatching Republicans from him,” Patrick E. Gonzales, the poll’s author, wrote in a synopsis of the results.
The candidates are vying to replace Rep. David Trone (D-Md.), who did not seek reelection to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.)
Trone lost the Senate primary to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who will face former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, in November.
In the race to replace Trone, Delaney has far outraised Parrott, with about two-thirds of the $3 million she had in total receipts by the end of the June filing period coming from personal loans, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Delaney has used those funds to spread her message and name across the district through campaign ads. She’s allocated more than $1.1 million over the past six months to paid media, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.
Parrott, who raised about $555,000 by the end of June, has spent $24,624 on ads during the same period.
Despite this, the poll found that over half of respondents were not familiar with Delaney. That included 38 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans surveyed.
Parrott, who held state office in the area for 12 years, was only unknown to 34 percent of respondents, mostly Democrats and independents.
Delaney holds a notable lead in Montgomery County along the wide-sweeping district’s eastern edge; Parrott’s favorability is stronger in the more rural western half of the region, including Washington, Allegany and Garrett counties, according to the poll.
Parrott’s team attributes his current positioning to momentum built over a summer of campaigning in Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick, and Montgomery counties, and playing up his home-court advantage.
In his messaging to voters, Parrott has touted the fact that he lives and has raised a family in the district he’s running to represent. He started a small business in Hagerstown and did a stint working in Frederick City’s local government, according to his campaign website.
Parrott says his time in the 6th District has allowed him to form connections with and understand “friends and neighbors in a way that someone who lives in a DC suburb cannot,” his campaign said in a statement about the poll results.
Delaney and her husband live in Potomac, which is part of Montgomery County.
Throughout the race, she’s highlighted her national political experience as a former Commerce Department deputy assistant communications secretary in the Biden administration.
She has attacked Parrott for his conservative stances on abortion and LGBTQ+ issues, his “ineffective radicalism” and “troubling record on combating antisemitism” when he was a state delegate.
A GOP win in the race could shift the landscape of the state’s federal delegation. Of Maryland’s eight house seats, only one is held by a Republican: Rep. Andy Harris in Maryland’s Eastern Shore, whom Parrott has campaigned with this election cycle.
However, if Democrats win big in November, the state could send three women to Congress. Maryland’s current delegation is all male.
In addition to the campaigns run by Delaney and Alsobrooks, Maryland state Sen. Sarah K. Elfreth (D-Anne Arundel) is facing off against Republican Robert J. Steinberger in hopes of replacing outgoing Rep. John Sarbanes (D) in the state’s 3rd District.
