BALTIMORE — National Democrats aren’t giving up on potentially eliminating Maryland’s lone Republican congressional seat through redistricting, despite state Senate President Bill Ferguson refusing to consider the effort. His chamber, necessary to advance legislation, will prioritize affordability issues during this year’s legislative session instead.

Redistricting in Maryland has been a point of contention among Ferguson, Gov. Wes Moore and Maryland voters across party lines since November. Moore wants to redraw Maryland’s maps to aid a national Democratic effort to counter the GOP.

“While Donald Trump is sitting here picking and choosing what our democracy should look like, I don’t think that Maryland should just allow other states to go through the mid-decade redistricting process —and while we sit on our hands and just watch that happen,” Maryland’s governor told The Baltimore Sun.

The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Ferguson has pushed back against new maps, however, warning that Maryland Democrats run the risk of losing congressional seats if state courts rule against Democrats; judges in the past have called current maps subject to “extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

Democratic voters have also raised similar concerns, and GOP voters have decried the possible loss of Republican representation in Congress if Democrats have their way.

Still, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking Democrat in the country, and other members of the national Democratic Party want to thwart President Donald Trump’s map-drawing strategy. And they think blue Maryland is the key to doing so.

The Sun asked Moore what role he believes Jeffries and national Democrats will play in how Maryland legislators decide to resolve the redistricting issue.

“I don’t take my instruction from party bosses, either state party bosses or federal party bosses,” he said.

Maryland’s current map has seven Democratic districts and one Republican district.

Jeffries met last week with Senate members of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus, pushing his argument for why Maryland should redraw its congressional maps. A source familiar with national Democratic leadership’s plans said Jeffries was “not being overly aggressive laying out the stakes.”

“He’s not going to be heavy-handed telling a Legislature what they should or should not be doing,” the source said, adding that Jeffries will continue to meet with Maryland’s Democratic legislators to emphasize the stakes of Maryland’s choosing not to pursue mid-decade redistricting.

Maryland state Sen. Arthur Ellis, who said he’d vote for a redistricting measure if it hit the Senate floor, said national Democratic leaders “really want to meet with us” and “want to get a favorable hearing with us.”

“I’m really happy that they finally realized — the folks in Washington — how important the state legislators are in determining who gets to Congress,” Ellis told The Sun. “Because for so many years they were ignoring that reality.”

Ellis, however, also asserted that national Democratic leaders “really can’t exert any undue influence on us to do what they want us to do,” saying that the U.S. Constitution mandates a separation of powers between federal and state governments.

Maryland opposition

On whether he’s concerned about Jeffries and national Democratic leaders overstepping on an issue incumbent on state legislators to decide, Ferguson said he has regular conversations with Senate Democrats and doesn’t “sense that much has changed in the past few months.”

“I wouldn’t have come to this conclusion if I hadn’t done my homework with my own members,” Ferguson said. Through an internal poll he conducted in his caucus to gauge support, 24 of 34 members said they were against redistricting, according to the poll.

Ferguson added that “the window is closed” on redistricting. And he stood firm in his stance Wednesday when he spoke to reporters at the State Capitol, as the General Assembly gathered for the first day of the 2026 legislative session.

Maryland Republicans, for months, have also opposed mid-decade redistricting, citing the need for fair and accurate representation in Congress. Republican leadership in November said it would introduce “The Fair Districts for Maryland Act” if Moore called a special session to advance pro-redistricting legislation.

That bill would have mandate once-a-decade redistricting, create a bipartisan redistricting commission, and ensure that congressional districts have natural boundaries not drawn based on political registration or past voting patterns and are made up of constituents with common interests.

Moore didn’t address redistricting at the special session in December, and pro-redistricting legislation isn’t likely to advance in the assembly unless a majority of senators signal support for the measure. But ahead of the 2026 legislative session Senate Majority Leader Steve Hershey said he and his colleagues would introduce the bill anyway to “continue that conversation.”

“We believe there should be fair maps,” Hershey told The Sun.

Similar dynamics are playing out among voters. Although voters across the country overwhelmingly support redrawing state congressional maps to give their party a boost in elections, most Marylanders don’t.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in December released a poll in which a majority of Marylanders said they cared more about economic issues than redistricting. Before that, The Sun reviewed to written testimonies collected by the Maryland Department of Planning that showed Marylanders overwhelmingly opposed redrawing the state’s maps.

Last week, Open Primaries, an election reform organization, released new data showing that even 80% of independent voters in Maryland oppose redistricting.

Cathy Stewart, the group’s national organizing director, told The Sun that the survey was intended to raise an alarm that a new map could further gerrymander Maryland’s congressional districts as Democrats’ proposal could manipulate congressional boundaries to dilute Republican votes. Also, because Maryland is a closed-primary state — meaning that only voters registered to a party are allowed to vote in a party’s respective primary election — independent voters’ voices are silenced until the general election, when the outcome has largely been determined, Stewart added.

“There’s a huge disconnect between the structure of our elections — in at least 14 states — and where our young people are at,” Stewart said. “It’s just unfair.”

Despite opposition, Moore’s redistricting commission is still accepting map suggestions from Marylanders. The group will evaluate and then make a recommendation to the governor and the General Assembly.

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