The following is a Benstorming commentary on the Democratic-Republican ratio in the new Baltimore County Council maps for the 2026 Elections.
Baltimore County Council is expanding from seven to nine districts for the 2026 Elections.
There are many unknowns about these new districts so I decided to take the 2022 County Council
results from each of the over 100 local precincts in Eastern Baltimore County and plug those numbers into the four new east side Council districts.
Here are the results:
District 6
Democrat candidate 65% (21503 votes)
Republican candidate 34% (11307 votes)
District 7
Republican candidate 64% (20509 votes)
Democrat candidate 35% (11268 votes)
District 8
Republican candidate 58% (14725 votes)
Democrat candidate 41% (10242 votes)
District 9
Republican candidate 59% (12932 votes)
Democrat candidate 40% (12942 votes)
I didn’t use any AI software. Just an old fashioned PDF searcher and Excel. I doubled and tripled checked my work but it’s possible I could have made slight mistakes. (Everyone is free to do the research too)
Another factor when looking at these numbers is 5th District Republican David Marks outperformed other Republicans in many of these election precincts in 2022 and 6th District Democrat Mike Ertel outperformed his Democratic colleagues too. So don’t assume all Republicans in the new districts will equal Marks’ numbers and don’t expect a new Democratic candidate to match Ertel’s performance.
There is also more combined total votes between Democratic and Republican candidates in some of the districts compared to others, but why?
Some districts have a higher turnout but the old District 7 had a Libertarian candidate in 2022 that took away votes from the Democratic and Republican candidates.
In addition, these numbers don’t include Early Voting and Absentee Ballots, which went heavily towards Democrats in 2022.
With all that background out of the way, Ertel’s new District 6 (east Towson, Overlea, Parkville) looks like a 2-1 potential advantage for the Democrats.
Marks’ new District 7 (Perry Hall, Kingsville, White Marsh & Carney) appears to go the opposite way and gives the Republicans a 2-1 potential advantage.
The new District 8 (Essex and Middle River) appears to be more favorable to Republicans.
The shocker was that the new District 9 (Dundalk, Sparrows Point and Rosedale) only potentially showed a Republican winning 59 to 40.
I thought the new Essex-Middle River district (District 8) would have been closer for the Democrats at 50-50 or slightly in favor of the Republicans around 55-45, and the Dundalk-Sparrows Point district would have been another 2 to 1 margin for Republicans but it’s much closer.
The final map was amended to move Rosedale voting precincts from District 8 to District 9. That appeared to give District 8 more Republican votes and make District 9 a lot closer than expected.
Both Districts 8 and 9 are still favored for Republicans but any race that is below the 60 to 40 percent ratio makes the seat in play for the other party. (And that’s not counting the Early Voting and Absentee Ballots)
We could have some close local elections in the fall.
