Harford County Council makeup likely to stay the same, could change based on mail-in ballot canvassing

Nov. 10—The makeup of the Harford County Council — six Republicans and one Democrat — could remain the same based on early voting and Election Day results so far.

Council president Patrick Vincenti, District C council member Tony Giangiordano and District F council member Curtis Beulah, all Republicans, are each leading in their re-election races over their Democratic counterparts.

Republicans James Reilly and Jessica Boyle-Tsottles are leading in Districts D and E to take over the vacancies left by council members Chad Shrodes and Robert Wagner, while Republican Aaron Penman ran unopposed in District B for council member Joseph Woods' former seat.

"I want to thank the voters of District D for electing me with 80 percent of the vote total," Reilly said Thursday. "I look forward to the work ahead as their new councilman."

Boyle-Tsottles said she looks forward to representing her district and bringing a female voice to the council.

"I'm excited to get to work representing [District E], and I look forward to building more relationships with the citizens of District E and our great county," she said.

Democrat Dion Guthrie leads in District A in the race to replace the council's lone Democrat, Andre Johnson, who ran for state delegate in District 34A and was leading at the most recent vote count.

Out of those council races, the closest margins are in the races for Districts A and F. Guthrie leads over Republican David Woods by 800 votes, or about an 8% margin, while Beulah leads over Democrat Jacob Bennett by 1,027 votes, also nearly by 8%.

The canvassing of the county's mail-in ballots could potentially alter these races, especially in District F considering that of the 16,586 mail-ballots returned by Harford voters as of Monday, 8,755 were from registered Democrats, 5,060 from Republicans and 2,771 from independents and unaffiliated voters, according to the state elections board.

"You never know until it's official," Beulah said.

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Bennett wrote on his campaign Facebook page that he estimates he is about 1,000 votes ahead of Beulah in the mail-in ballots. The first canvass of these ballots started Thursday.

"We are proud of the race we ran and think it speaks to the strength of our community ties that even with [about] one-tenth the money of our opponent, who is an eight-year incumbent, that we are holding the race this close," Bennett said.

In this year's primary election, out of Bennett's total 2,617 votes received, about 36% of his votes, 944, were from mail-in or provisional ballots. That is nearly double the amount of mail-in/provisional ballots Beulah received in the primary, 450, which made up about 17.8% of his total of 2,523 votes received.

In 2018, Beulah beat Democrat Wini Roche, who ran this year unsuccessfully for county council president, by only 235 votes, just over 1-percentage point.

Guthrie, a former council member first elected in 2002, received more votes than his opponent from early voting and Election Day and feels confident in maintaining his lead once the mail-in ballots are all counted.

"I'm feeling confident that these numbers will break in my favor," Guthrie said.