Maryland gave Kamala Harris a 28.5-point margin in 2024 — 1.9 million votes to 1.0 million — yet the Democratic majority is the work of a few places, not the whole map. The Republican carried sixteen of the state’s twenty-four jurisdictions; the Democrat carried eight and won the state by mass. Prince George’s County, a majority-Black Washington suburb of more than 400,000 votes, went Democratic by 74.8 points, the widest margin in the state; Montgomery County added 52.8 and Baltimore City 72.4. That concentration is the Maryland pattern: the Washington–Baltimore corridor outvotes everywhere else combined.
Everywhere else runs the other way. The reddest ground is the Western panhandle and the Eastern Shore — Garrett County, in the far west against West Virginia, voted Republican by 53.8 points, the state’s widest, with Allegany next at 40.2. Across the Chesapeake the rural Shore counties hold Republican from Cecil down to Worcester, with Talbot the closest county in the state, decided by three votes short of a tie. The state did drift: its Democratic margin fell from 33.2 points in 2020, and Prince George’s itself slipped from 80.5 to 74.8 as Montgomery eased from 59.6 — the national Democratic softening reaching even the bluest Maryland ground.
The state underneath is affluent and educated — second of the fifty in median household income at $103,678, well above the U.S. $80,734, fourth in bachelor’s degrees, and fifth-lowest in poverty — and 29 percent Black, among the largest shares in the country. Its top line has been Democratic for president in eight straight elections, but it splits its ticket downballot: Republican Larry Hogan won the governorship in 2014 by 3.7 points and again in 2018 by 11.9, taking 55 percent in a state this Democratic. Wes Moore took it back for the Democrats in 2022 by 32.4 over Dan Cox; in 2026 the two meet again.