Rep. Steny Hoyer speaks at a Question 6 rally in Stamp Student Union on Monday afternoon. Hoyer, who represents the 5th Congressional District, secured two more years last night.
For more than 30 years, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has represented the 5th Congressional District, and after last night’s election, the senior-ranking Democrat secured two more years on Capitol Hill.
His district includes this university — which is also his alma mater — as well as Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties and parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties.
Last night’s results, in which Hoyer received almost 70 percent of the vote, were no surprise, given that Hoyer has almost always won with comfortable margins since 1981. This year’s campaign against the state’s House of Delegates Minority Leader, Anthony O’Donnell (R-Calvert and St. Mary’s), is just another landslide for the U.S. House Minority Whip.
Now, Hoyer will stay the course and continue throwing support behind this university and its endeavors, such as through funding academic buildings and reaching out to students.
“I will continue that activity,” Hoyer said of his plans. “I’m a graduate of the university, feel strongly about the university, feel it’s one of the major universities in our country.”
With Hoyer as a longtime political mainstay in the Democratic party, some state Republicans said the state’s middle-income residents need a change.
“The issue we have here is the opponent is a lifelong political fixture who has never had to deal with the realities of small business,” said state Sen. Ed Reilly (R-Anne Arundel) in the days leading up to the election. He threw his support behind O’Donnell.
“As a minority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates, Tony has done a good job of speaking up for small business, for the middle class, for providing alternatives to the out-of-touch Democratic agenda,” Reilly said.
O’Donnell has an ability to reach across the aisle, Reilly said, as evidenced by his leadership role in the Republican caucus where he is working with an overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature.
“I have watched with amazement of the gridlock in Washington, D.C., because there’s no moderates; there’s no middle ground,” Reilly said.
And Reilly said he doesn’t see Hoyer willing to meet in the middle on many issues.
“The current congressman is fully entrenched with liberal, progressive, Democratic ideals, and we need somebody who is a little more pragmatic,” he said.
The political stalemate in Congress, Reilly said, is the cause of the more pressing issues in the nation, such as the debt crisis.
Despite such criticism, Hoyer said he will work to put the younger generation on a more “fiscally sustainable path, fiscally-balanced path,” which he said was one of his “principal objectives.”
Hoyer said he didn’t feel the opposition was as energized as in 2010, when the conservative tea party movement was in full swing and the Republicans overtook Democratic seats in the House to win control. In 2010, Hoyer retained his seat in a race against Republican challenger Charles Lollar. Lollar won most of southern Maryland, but a landslide in Prince George’s County ultimately sealed Hoyer’s victory.
“This year, I don’t see that kind of activity,” Hoyer said. “I think it has been a pretty low-key race.”
