Maryland Senate Race: Chris Van Hollen Easily Defeats Kathy Szeliga

UPDATED at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday BETHESDA, MD — Voters in Maryland have chosen Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Kensington, to replace five-term U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, defeating Republican House Minority Whip Delegate Kathy Szeliga in unofficial returns.

According to the State Board of Elections website, Van Hollen received 1,251,296 votes, for 62.2 percent, compared with 694,635 votes for Szeliga, or 34.5 percent.

The Associated Press, CBS and CNN had all earlier projected that Van Hollen will move to the Senate chamber, leaving the state's Congressional delegation without a woman as a member.

At his election night party in Silver Spring, Van Hollen thanked voters for “uniting behind the common purpose of trying to make sure every Marylander is treated with dignity and treated with respect and has an opportunity to have a fair shake in America.”

He saluted county executives from Prince George's, Montgomery and Baltimore counties for their endorsements, and thanked Comptroller Peter Franchot and Attorney General Brian Frosh, who were in attendance, and said he hoped to "try to bring common sense to the Capitol."

While Szeliga won some of the state's smaller counties — Allegany, Calvert, Carroll, and Somerset — the two largest counties she captured were Harford and Washington. The former Baltimore teacher, who represents Harford and Baltimore counties at the statehouse, finished about 46,000 votes behind Van Hollen in Baltimore County.

Van Hollen will replace Mikulski, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992.

“Senator Mikulski’s departure from public office, her retirement from the U.S. Senate is a great loss, not only to women, not only to Maryland, but to this country,” Congressional-elect Anthony Brown said. “She has been a fireball and blockbuster advocate on so many issues: women’s issues, veterans’ issues, seniors. She’s irreplaceable.”

Mikulski endorsed Van Hollen as her replacement.

“Chris Van Hollen was a strong player in the House, he will continue being a strong player in the Senate,” said Steven Cenname, a general assembly worker from Rockville who campaigned for Clinton in Ohio. “He’ll bring home the bacon for Maryland.”

With Van Hollen’s victory, his House seat went to Democrat Jamie Raskin, who clinched 59 percent of the vote. Raskin currently is a state senator and will resign that post.

“A lot of what I’ve done is cross the aisle,” Raskin told Capital News Service at the University of Maryland. “I hope to play the same kind of role in Washington, to bring Republicans and Democrats together.”

Democrats were hoping to claim the Senate majority from Republicans, who currently hold 54 seats compared to the Democrats’ 46.

“I’m a passionate Democrat,” Raskin said. “I would like the Democrats to take the majority back, (but) even more important than that is to end this system of gerrymandering so we have more fair election.”

All six incumbent representatives for Maryland kept, including Andy Harris, who remains the sole Republican representing Maryland in Congress.

Harris, first elected to the House in 2011, won 68 percent of the vote. The other winners were Democratic Reps. Dutch Ruppersberger of Timonium (2nd District), John Sarbanes of Towson (3rd District), Steny Hoyer of Mechanicsville (5th District), John Delaney of Potomac, (6th District), and Elijah Cummings of Baltimore (7th District), will keep his seat.

A RealClearPolitics average of polls in late September showed Van Hollen with 55 percent support to 26 percent for Szeliga.

Van Hollen, 57, was elected to Congress in 2002 from the Eighth District of Maryland and serves as the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. He had previously served in the Maryland State Senate and the House of Delegates. Szeliga, who has been endorsed by Gov. Larry Hogan, represents Harford and Baltimore counties in the House of Delegates.

»Check back here later for local and national election results as they come in.

“Whether you’re from…the Baltimore area, whether you’re from the Washington suburbs, or from western Maryland, or southern Maryland or the Eastern Shore, I will fight hard for you everyday in the United States Senate,” Van Hollen said after his primary win in April.

Van Hollen started Election Day by voting at Temple Emanuel in Kensington, then had stops at Leisure World in Silver Spring, Long Reach High School in Columbia, and appearances at schools in Baltimore and Prince George's County before waiting for results to come in at a Maryland Democratic Party rally at Tommy Douglas Conference Center in Silver Spring.

In rebuttal, Szeliga called on Van Hollen to speak out against Clinton over her use of a private email server.

"There you go again, Congressman Van Hollen," Szeliga said. "I have called my party's nominee out on many occasions, just as I've called out Hillary Clinton on many occasions."

He has worked to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, protect whistle blowers, and boost usage for the Port of Baltimore and Baltimore Washington International Airport, according to the Capital-Gazette. One of his key pieces of legislation is the DISCLOSE Act, which would require the disclosure of campaign contributions.

In June, after the nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, Van Hollen joined a sit-in protest by Democrats in the House of Representatives to force a vote on gun control measures. In his speech from the House floor, Van Hollen said the chamber has done nothing but offer a "moment of silence" each time a mass shooting has taken innocent lives, from the 2012 carnage in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., to the latest massacre in Orlando.

And he accused the National Rifle Association of taking control of the House floor on this issue, "lock, stock and barrel. That ends today."

Szeliga, 55, is a former teacher in the Baltimore schools who owns a construction business with her husband.

She adheres to conservative positions on taxes, spending, gay marriage and gun control, said that if she were in Congress, she would not push to shut down the federal government over Planned Parenthood funding, The Washington Post reports.