Outgoing Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
On Friday, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that she
would not seek re-election next year.
It's been a very ugly few months for Rawlings-Blake. When Sen. Barbara Mikulski announced her retirement in March, Rawlings-Blake considered running to succeed her, and at the time she looked like a formidable potential candidate. But any Senate hopes Rawlings-Blake may have had were dashed in April, when riots broke out after Freddie Gray died in police custody. Rawlings-Blake was widely criticized for her handling of the crisis, and it quickly became clear that she'd have a very tough time holding her seat in the April 2016 Democratic primary.
Rawlings-Blake initially announced that she would seek another term, but prominent Charm City politicians began making noises about challenging her in the primary. In early September, state Sen. Catherine Pugh and Councilor Carl Stokes each kicked off a campaign. While it only takes a simple plurality to win the Democratic nomination, which is tantamount to election here, it looked like Rawlings-Blake was just too damaged from the riots and the city's crime rate to win even against a divided field. Evidently, Rawlings-Blake agreed.
With Rawlings-Blake out of the race, the field is likely to grow over the next few months. Besides Pugh and Stokes, ex-Mayor Shelia Dixon is also already running. However, Dixon has her own liabilities: She resigned in 2009 after she was convicted of stealing gift cards that were supposed to help needy families. We have a long while to go before the April primary, which will be held on the same day as Maryland's presidential and Senate primary, and a lot will still happen. But it looks like we're in for an exciting wide-open contest here.
