Running for reelection, Brandon Scott is now ‘battle-tested,’ his supporters say. Is it enough?

The screen at Baltimore’s Senator Theatre faded to black.

The film the crowd gathered to see had ended on a somber note. Mayor Brandon Scott’s quest to reduce homicides in Baltimore remained unrealized by the time filmmakers behind “The Body Politic” stopped shooting the first-term mayor around the end of 2021. Scott’s efforts continued after cameras went down, however, and the crowd knew what happened next.

White text appeared on the screen announcing the benchmark: Baltimore’s homicide count fell below 300 in 2023. It was the first time in nearly a decade.

An emotional theater erupted into applause. Some rose to their feet as Scott took the stage moments later to answer questions about the film.

“Are you inspired?” host Dapper Dan Midas asked, beckoning the crowd. Attendees hummed in the affirmative. “Are you rejuvenated?”

Scott’s quest has not ended. The mayor, who has made combating violent crime a chief focus, often notes that one victim of homicide is too many. But as the city’s May 14 primary draws near, that figure has been a feather in Scott’s cap.

“They sent me to City Hall four years ago after we went debate after debate, conversation after conversation about how the mayor was going to develop and plan a strategy to significantly reduce homicides,” Scott said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “And I did that.”

Scott’s challengers in the mayoral race are familiar. All three of his top opponents — former Mayor Sheila Dixon, former prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah and businessman Bob Wallace — also ran in 2020, although Wallace did so as an independent. This time, all are Democrats. Dixon, who a recent poll showed running close to Scott, came nearest to beating him last time. She trailed by about 3,100 votes.

The narrative this time is different. In 2020, much was made of the then-36-year-old Scott’s youth. Despite his 10 years on the City Council and a career spent entirely in public service, he fended off barbs from his fellow candidates and commentary as he knocked on voters’ doors.

Now 40, Scott looks little older than his 36-year-old self. His cluttered meme and trophy-decorated mayoral office bears resemblance to a middle school boy’s bedroom. But city residents have had the benefit of watching Scott grow into the mayoral post. He’s shepherded the city through a pandemic, mourned the loss of an unprecedented number of firefighters and been a face of Baltimore following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

State Sen. Cory McCray, an ally and friend of Scott’s, said he’s now “battle-tested.”

“Being in the position, you’re either going to sink or swim,” McCray said. “I think he swam.”

Scott has also grown into his life. As a councilman and then mayor, he had a reputation for being married to his work, but Scott is a little less wedded these days. He bought his first house last summer. In December, he welcomed his first child and got engaged to partner Hana Pugh, with whom he co-parents Pugh’s elder son. During a reporter’s recent visit to his office, he firmly instructed his staff to push off a news conference to make time for a family event. There were no objections.

Scott said fatherhood has “level-set” him and forced him to think about how he communicates. Ceron, the 8-year-old Scott has already taken to calling his stepson, is listening, he said.

“I want to invest in them [his sons] and every one of their counterparts and build a city in a way that they can have a much better life than I did growing up,” Scott said.

Amid a familiar field of candidates and a falling homicide tally, the question that permeates the 2024 campaign is whether Scott has done enough — done enough to curb crime, done enough to tackle the city’s other systemic problems, done enough to deserve a second term.

Scott’s opponents suggest he has not.

While homicides and other nonfatal shootings are down, property crimes in the city have trended up. Auto thefts in particular, mirroring a national trend, have skyrocketed, increasing more than 200% from 2022 to 2023. Dixon has argued that such quality-of-life crimes drive residents from the city.

State’s Attorney Ivan Bates has sided with Dixon. Bates, a Democrat elected in 2022, went public with what he called a growing “rift” between him and Scott on their approach to the crime fight. Days later he endorsed Dixon. Scott and Bates traded barbs over the citation docket, an initiative Bates is pushing to prosecute low-level crimes. Following a private meeting, the two agreed to move forward — at least publicly.

Polled about crime, most likely voters surveyed by The Sun, University of Baltimore and FOX45 said they haven’t seen a decrease. But for those who did — about 25% — most credited Scott rather than Bates and others.

Scott pointed to a decrease in car jackings from 2022 to 2023 and gun seizure statistics as evidence that he is focused on more than just the homicide rate.

“This whole conversation around us not being focused on the totality and only being focused on gun violence is one, false, but also an attempt to distract people from the progress we’ve made,” he said.

2024 voter guide: Brandon M. Scott, candidate for Baltimore mayor

Comptroller Bill Henry, who serves alongside Scott on the Board of Estimates, argued that Scott’s tenure has been largely scandal-free, particularly compared with those of some of his predecessors. The resignation of Mayor Catherine Pugh amid a self-dealing scandal is not long in the rearview mirror for Baltimoreans. But Scott has had some missteps in Henry’s estimation. The comptroller pointed to Scott’s decision to strike a deal with Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. for the maintenance of the city’s conduit.

The deal, which Henry publicly objected to, shifts the responsibility for maintaining the city’s 700-mile underground utility network to BGE. Previously, Baltimore paid to maintain the system which rents space to various utility companies, including BGE.

Henry and numerous members of the City Council raised concerns about the proposal, which the Office of the People’s Counsel later warned would allow BGE to transfer new costs to consumers. The proposal was public for less than a month before Scott shoved it across the finish line during an unorthodox spending board meeting.

Henry said residents he spoke to afterward were upset by Scott’s actions. But more than a year has passed since, and there has been little discussion of the conduit on the campaign trail, he said.

“You’d need someone going on TV about the BGE conduit deal to remind people, oh yeah, I didn’t like that the mayor went ahead and did that,” Henry said.

What Scott’s tenure has lacked in self-made crises, it’s been dealt with unforeseen circumstances, such as the coronavirus pandemic, which dominated Scott’s first two years in office.

In the predawn hours of March 26, another crisis struck. Scott was heading to bed following his State of the City address when a massive cargo ship plowed into the Key Bridge, felling the more than mile-long structure. Six construction workers were killed, and the collapse continues to block the Port of Baltimore, challenging the shoreline economy.

In the days since, Scott has been thrust into the national spotlight, a position he’s handled in his customary style: being unabashedly himself. When a reporter, just hours after the bridge fell, asked how quickly it could be rebuilt, Scott bristled.

“Right now, there are people in the water,” he said. “That’s the only thing we should be talking about.”

When online commenters entered the fray with racist commentary about Scott’s clothes and hair and referred to him as a “DEI mayor,” Scott doubled down on being Scott, showing up to news conferences in even more casual attire. He addressed the criticism on national television. Surely those online trolls meant “duly elected incumbent” when they said DEI, he told MSNBC’s Joy Reid, accusing his critics of being too afraid to say the n-word.

To the chagrin of some observers and the delight of others, Scott, the unapologetic son of Baltimore’s Park Heights, has been the city’s face to the world.

“There’s nothing they can say or do to me that they haven’t done to my ancestors,” Scott said of the attacks. “I feel a responsibility to those who literally died for me to be where I am.”

“But to those folks [online], you can hate me,” he said. “You can say whatever you want about me, but I’m not going anywhere. I am their worst nightmare.”

First in a series of articles about candidates for mayor. Coming Tuesday: Bob Wallace