Editor’s note: This story, originally published at 3:47 p.m. Nov. 8, 2024, was updated at 8:15 a.m. Nov. 10. 2024, to reflect that the Associated Press is projecting that April McClain Delaney will win the race. It was updated again at 6:21 p.m. on Nov. 14, 2024 to include Neil Parrott’s concession statement.
Democrat April McClain Delaney declared victory in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District race on Friday afternoon, after several days of waiting for mail-in ballot results from county boards of elections across the district following Tuesday’s general election.
On Saturday night, the Associated Press projected that McClain Delaney of Potomac had won the hotly contested race in which Republican Neil Parrott of Hagerstown was making his third run for the seat.
“I am deeply honored and humbled by the trust the people of Maryland’s 6th District have placed in me,” McClain Delaney said in a press release Friday. “Since the beginning of this campaign, our message has been clear: it’s time for common sense, common ground leadership that puts people over politics, defends our freedoms and values, and builds a future centered on unity.”
Parrott did not concede the election until Thursday afternoon, five days after the Associated Press projection.
“The vast majority of votes have now been counted, and it has become clear that April McClain-Delaney will be elected to this Congressional seat,” Parrott wrote on social media. “I wish Mrs. McClain-Delaney all the best as she executes her duties to serve the people of Maryland’s 6th Congressional District over the next two years.”
In a statement to MoCo360 following McClain Delaney’s announcement last week, Parrott had said he did not plan to concede or declare victory until all votes are counted.
“I am extremely grateful for the huge amount of work that was put into this campaign by volunteers in all five counties,” Parrott wrote in an email. “As a result of this effort and sacrifice, the Parrott Campaign will wait until all the votes are counted before declaring victory or defeat.”
With 92% of the vote reporting, McClain Delaney holds a 52% to 48% lead over Parrott with 14,671 votes, according to the latest results reported by the Maryland State Board of Elections. The race was too close to call in the hours after polls closed Tuesday and the days immediately following, with the candidates flip-flopping in holding a lead in the race, each being ahead by about 300 votes at different points.
The geographic makeup of the district has made the race more competitive than others across the state as it includes majority-Democratic Montgomery County as well as more conservative-leaning counties. It is being closely watched as a race that could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives.
The district represents the northwestern portion of Montgomery County and all of Allegany, Frederick, Garrett and Washington counties in western Maryland. The district is currently represented by Potomac’s Rep. David Trone (D), who vacated the seat for an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate.
McClain Delaney, a former U.S. Commerce Department official and communications lawyer, lives in Potomac. Her husband, John Delaney, previously held the seat from 2013 to 2019 prior to his short campaign to become U.S. president in 2020.
This was Parrott’s third attempt to win the seat. He ran against Trone in 2018 and 2022. A former state delegate, Parrott represented District 2A in the Maryland General Assembly following a career as a traffic engineer.
In 2022, the race came down to the counting of mail-in ballots and wasn’t called until three days after Election Day, when Parrott conceded to Trone. The county’s Republican central committee has cited this dynamic as the reason it encouraged Republican voters in the district to vote by mail.
This year’s race sparked testiness from the candidates, who clashed at several events and in media appearances and literally jabbed fingers at a forum.
The two candidates pulled out big names to rally voters in the final days of voting, with Gov. Wes Moore (D) appearing in Montgomery County on behalf of McClain Delaney and U.S. House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) lending support to Parrott in Frederick.
Abortion and LGBTQ+ rights emerged as top issues in the race as Parrott’s conservative record on these issues in the General Assembly came to light, with McClain Delaney’s campaign criticizing Parrott’s views. Parrott accused McClain Delaney of lying in campaign ads. Parrott focused the latter days of his campaign on infrastructure and economics and limited his discussion of civil rights issues, while McClain Delaney emphasized reproductive health care access as a cornerstone of her campaign.
The race was also an expensive one, with McClain Delaney pouring millions of her own dollars into her campaign.
This is a developing story.
