Freshman Del. Joe Vogel (D-Dist. 17) has filed to run for Maryland congressional District 6, just hours after its current representative, Democrat David Trone, announced he would be running for U.S. Senate in a bid to succeed Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).
Vogel, who is among the first members of Gen-Z elected to the State House, has filed the Vogel for Congress campaign with the Federal Election Commission. He is preparing to make an announcement next week, according to a source close to Vogel directly involved with preparing for the announcement who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Cardin announced Monday he would not seek reelection. Trone’s campaign leaves the field open for candidates for that congressional seat.
Vogel, 26, currently represents parts of Rockville and Gaithersburg in the Maryland General Assembly and recently finished his first legislative session.
The source noted that Vogel is staffing an experienced campaign.
The team includes:
- Greg Minoff: Founder and president of Blue Wall Mail, a direct mail political consulting firm. He managed President Joe Biden’s Iowa mail plan. Former Montgomery County executive candidate David Blair was a previous client.
- Lauren Dikis: Former finance director for U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), she is managing director at New Blue Interactive, a Democratic campaign strategy firm
- Cayce McCabe and Jenna Kruse: Media consultants who helped to elect U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first member of Gen-Z elected to Congress.
- Margie Omero and Michelle Mayorga: Principal and senior vice president (respectively) of Pollster GBAO, a public opinion research and political strategy firm. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Dist. 8) is a former client
The source said Vogel is also being advised by people who formerly advised Trone and formerly advised U.S. Sen Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).
Vogel is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and education and revenues subcommittees. This session, several pieces of legislation he sponsored passed, including a bill establishing a Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, and the Josh Siems Act, which will require stronger and increased fentanyl testing for overdose patients in Maryland hospitals.
Trone is the multimillionaire co-owner of Total Wine & More, which gives him the ability to self-fund, as he did in his campaign for Maryland Congressional District 6. Vogel and other Democratic candidates will likely have a tougher time without that money in a district that includes Frederick County and isn’t solidly blue.
Trone narrowly beat Del. Neil Parrott (R-2A) in the 2022 race for the congressional seat in what was considered to be the state’s most competitive congressional race this year, thanks largely to redistricting.
Trone and Parrott had previously faced off in 2020, when Trone handily won, 59% to 39%. But this year, they were running in a district dramatically altered by a congressional redistricting plan enacted by the Maryland General Assembly — after an earlier plan had been rejected by a state judge, ruling in response to a lawsuit brought by Parrott and several other plaintiffs.
The final redistricting plan removed about 100,000 voters from Democratic-dominated Montgomery County, leaving about 150,000 6th District voters in the northern and western portions of the county. At the same time, it added about 100,000 voters from Republican areas of politically purple Frederick County to the 6th – transforming a reliably Democratic congressional district into one assessed by the political website 538.com as leaning Republican by a single percentage point.
The politically diverse district extends nearly 200 miles west from Gaithersburg to the edge of Maryland’s Panhandle, and includes three strongly Republican counties – Allegany, Garrett and Washington – in addition to all of Frederick County and a portion of Montgomery.
Other names that have been mentioned by political observers as potential Democratic candidates for Trone’s seat are Del. Lesley J. Lopez (D-Dist. 39), former Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner, state Sen. Brian J. Feldman (D-Dist. 15), and April McClain-Delaney, a U.S. Commerce Department official and wife of former Rep. John Delaney (D-Dist. 6), who held the seat before Trone.
Potential Republican candidates for the seat include Parrott, House Minority Leader Del. Jason Buckel (R-Dist. 1b) and 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox, a former delegate who ran unsuccessfully for Maryland Congressional District 6 in 2016.