The 2020 United States presidential election in Maryland was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Maryland voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Maryland has 10 electoral votes in the Electoral College.
Biden easily carried Maryland with 65.4% of the vote to Trump's 32.2% (a margin of 33.2%, significantly larger than Hillary Clinton's 26.4% in 2016). Prior to the election, all news organizations projecting the election considered Maryland a state that Biden would carry comfortably. Maryland has long been a Democratic-leaning state, and no Republican presidential candidate has won it since George H. W. Bush in 1988. Biden carried the Black-majority, suburban counties of Prince George's County and Charles County with over 80% and 60% of the vote respectively, Baltimore City with almost 90% of the vote, and the white-majority, suburban counties of Montgomery, Howard, and Baltimore with over 60% each. While Republicans typically win more counties by running up margins in more rural western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, the Baltimore-Washington area casts over three-fourths of the state's vote, making it difficult for a Republican to carry Maryland. While Trump won 14 of Maryland's 24 county-level jurisdictions, Biden won the six largest, all of which are part of the Baltimore-Washington area–Montgomery, Prince George's, Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties and Baltimore City–by over a million votes collectively, more than enough to carry the state.
Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Biden's principal strength in Maryland came from winning 94% of African-Americans, who represented 28% of the electorate. 74% of voters believed the criminal justice system needed a complete overhaul or major changes, and they opted for Biden by 73%. Biden won all other major demographic groups, including 52% of Whites (the first time since 1964 that a Democratic candidate won the white vote in Maryland), 69% of Latinos, 79% of Jews, 54% of Protestants, and 51% of Catholics. Frederick, Kent, and Talbot counties voted for Trump in 2016, but supported Biden in 2020.
Primary elections
The primary elections were originally scheduled for April 28, 2020. On March 17, they were moved to June 2 due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican primary
Donald Trump won the Republican primary, and thus received all of the state's 38 delegates to the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Democratic primary
Green primary
General election
Predictions
Polling
Graphical summary
Aggregate polls
Polls
Results
By county
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Frederick (largest municipality: Frederick)
- Kent (largest municipality: Chestertown)
- Talbot (largest municipality: Easton)
By congressional district
Biden won 7 of the state's 8 congressional districts.
Analysis
Biden's performance was the strongest in Maryland for any candidate since Horatio Seymour's 67.2% in 1868. In terms of statewide vote share, Trump performed worse than any Republican since 1912, when the national Republican vote was split by former President Theodore Roosevelt's third-party run; even landslide losers Herbert Hoover in 1932, Alf Landon in 1936, and Barry Goldwater in 1964 managed higher vote shares than Trump's 32.15%. Apart from 1912, only in the antebellum elections of 1856 and 1860–when the Republican Party was not yet established in the slaveholding Old Line State–did the Republican nominee perform worse than Trump did in 2020. In this election, Maryland voted 28.75% to the left of the nation at-large.
With the exception of Somerset County, every county in the state swung to Biden from Hillary Clinton's performance in 2016; many swung Democratic by double digits. It was also one of five states in the nation in which Biden's victory margin was larger than one million raw votes: the others being California, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois.
See also
- United States presidential elections in Maryland
- 2020 United States presidential election
- 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries
- 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries
- 2020 United States elections
Notes
References
Further reading
- Summary: State Laws on Presidential Electors (PDF), Washington DC: National Association of Secretaries of State, August 2020,
Maryland
External links
- Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association, "Maryland", Voting & Elections Toolkits
- "Maryland: Election Tools, Deadlines, Dates, Rules, and Links", Vote.org, Oakland, CA
- "League of Women Voters of Maryland". (state affiliate of the U.S. League of Women Voters)
- Maryland at Ballotpedia
