Editor’s note: This story was originally published at 11:42 a.m. on June 23, 2025. It was updated at 12:31 p.m. on June 23, 2025 to correct that the event was Sunday.
Launching his campaign for Montgomery County executive at Cabin John Regional Park in Bethesda on Sunday, County Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) said he believes serving in the county’s top leadership post means focusing on actions, not just words.
“I firmly believe that if we want to prove that government can work, we don’t win by shouting from our mountain tops as loud or more loudly than the other team is shouting from theirs,” Friedson, a Bethesda resident, said to a crowd of more than 100 people. “We make the case by proving that government can work, especially by starting at the local level and getting the little things right, so we can get trust from people that we can do the big things.”
Friedson, 39, is running to replace County Executive Marc Elrich (D), who is facing his final two years in office after voters passed a term-limit referendum in November that amends the county charter to restrict the county executive to serving two terms. Elrich is serving the second year of his second four-year term, which will end in 2026. He has announced he will seek a council seat.
Friedson’s main rivals in the 2026 race are councilmembers Evan Glass (D-At-large), who announced his candidacy March 12 in an exclusive interview with Bethesda Today, and Will Jawando (D-At-large), who officially announced his run at a May 21 event. Jawando has received the endorsement of Elrich, as well as fellow councilmembers Laurie-Anne Sayles (D-At-large) and Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5).
Saturday’s event occurred one year and one day before the June 23, 2026 Democratic primary election, and marked a shift in the race as other elected officials made their candidate preference known. Elected officials at the park included councilmember Marilyn Balcombe (D-Dist. 2) and several of the county’s Maryland General Assembly members, including Dels. Marc Korman (D-Dist. 16), Sarah Wolek (D-Dist. 16), Teresa Woorman (D-Dist. 16) and Jared Solomon (D-Dist. 18) and Sens. Brian Feldman (D-Dist. 15), Nancy King (D-Dist. 39) and Craig Zucker (D-Dist. 14).
Feldman offered a full-throated endorsement of Friedson in his remarks Saturday, alluding to issues he has experienced working with Elrich.
“I’m going to be a little aggressive, maybe I’m not politically correct. We can’t have a county executive when we go forward here, who gets uninvited to our delegation meetings, who attacks members of the General Assembly, who has very little juice level in Annapolis,” Feldman said.
As the largest county in the state, Montgomery County needs an executive who is respected in Annapolis, Feldman said.
“We need somebody who understands the nuance of Annapolis and Andrew, by far, has the most understanding of that world than the other opponents,” Feldman said.
King said she’s known Friedson since she was his professor while he was a student at the University of Maryland. She said she sees him as “the only guy who can do this.”
“We’re in really critical times as far as the business environment goes. I’m talking to people that are moving their businesses out of the state, because it is too hard to do business in Maryland,” King said. “It’s a major focus of mine. It’s a major focus of Andrew’s because if we’re going to survive, we’ve got to turn things around.”
Friedson told those at the park that he wants to build a county that is “more affordable, more accessible and more competitive.”
“I believe that more than ever we can prove that in this dark moment in our county’s history, as public service is being diminished … that we can be the light in this dark moment,” Friedson said. “We can prove, not screaming but showing, how Montgomery County can be the leader for the region, can be the leader for the country, and that we can live up to our values by leaning in to those values.”
In an interview with Bethesda Today following the event Saturday, Friedson addressed criticism from Elrich and Jawando that he has accepted money from developers. Friedson has more than $1 million in a traditional campaign fundraising account, in contrast to Glass and Jawando, who opted to go through the county’s public election fund process and cannot accept funding from corporations or political action committees.
“This is a grassroots campaign. We have been building support even in the last couple of weeks, from every corner of Montgomery County,” Friedson said. “We have small-dollar contributions that we have received from every corner of our community, and I’m extremely proud of that.”
Friedson said he is frustrated with focusing on “politics over policy.”
“I’m not running against anyone. I’m running for Montgomery County,” he said. “We see this destructive, divisive politics at the federal level, and I don’t think we should have it in Montgomery County.”
