All five incumbents in Howard County Council race hold large leads

Nov. 9—All five incumbents in the Howard County Council races held large leads over their opponents Tuesday evening with all Election Day precincts, early voting numbers, and a portion of mail-in ballots counted.

Democrats Liz Walsh, of District 1; Opel Jones, of District 2; and Christiana Rigby, of District 3, squared off against Republic challengers, while the council's sole Republican incumbent, David Yungmann, of District 5, faced Democrat Joan Pontius.

[ More: 2022 Maryland election results ]

No candidate contested Democrat Deb Jung's District 4, which covers five Columbia villages.

"We had a lot of positive feedback," said Yungmann, who led his opponent Pontius by a margin of 55.89% to 44.04% as of Tuesday night.

Yungmann visited several polling stations in his district throughout Election Day. "We've worked hard in this election and we've worked hard today and hope for the best."

Jones said he was excited not only for his own race — in which he had earned about 70% of the votes in his district compared with Republican Sheila Jennifer's 30% — but also for those of fellow Democrats Calvin Ball for county executive and Wes Moore for governor.

"I'm happy that Democrats showed up to make sure that they wanted to bring forth their referendum against things that are happening federally, like Roe v. Wade," he said. "The number of Democrats coming out to vote for Wes Moore really helped the Democrats down ballot, so I'm really thankful for that."

Despite heated partisan campaigns at the state and national levels, Walsh said this year's Howard County Council race had been a largely civil affair. That was until she drove by one of her and Pontius' joint campaign signs on fire at the intersection of Frederick Road and Route 29 late Tuesday afternoon.

"It's just unfortunately a sad manifestation of where we are, but that's where people are willing to take it," said Walsh, as she drove to meet volunteers at the Centennial Lane Elementary School polling station.

Walsh's challenger, Republican Sean McCurdy of Ellicott City, said he hoped authorities found whoever was responsible for destroying the sign. He said that the election has been a positive experience overall for him.

"This is my first time running for anything," McCurdy said. "All the Republican candidates have been extremely helpful and every time I've met Liz, she's been amicable, if not trying to coach me a little bit. She's been great."

Other than a few ballot-marking devices that needed to be fixed in the morning, Howard County Board of Elections Director Guy Mickley said there were no major hiccups with the voting process Tuesday.

"The process was running smoothly, which is all you can really ask for the Election Day," said Mickley, who spent the day at polling stations in the western part of the county. "Voters that I talked to today reflected how appreciative they were for the organized, smooth process."

The elections board already counted more than 11,000 mail-in ballots on Oct. 23, according to Mickley, who's served as the board's director since 2010. He said his team is still assessing the pandemic's impact on the election process across the county.

"Obviously, there's a shift in how people were voting and we won't be able to crunch numbers until maybe after the next election to see how that really affects Election Day and early voting," he said.

Even though her District 4 seat went uncontested, Jung said she remained as engaged as ever with voters this election cycle.

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"I care about all the people who I represent and I care about all of these elections and where the country is going," she said .

Jung added she's looking forward to being able to engage face-to-face with constituents for a full four-year term, as opposed to having to hear the community's concerns remotely during the pandemic era.

"We were five new council members [in 2018] and half of the time that we spent in public office was on Zoom," Jung said. "We're public figures, or we should be. We were as public as we could be, given the circumstances."