Raskin, Leggett won’t endorse in contentious MoCo executive primary
County’s congressional representative does issue laudatory statements for use by three leading Democratic contenders
By
Louis PeckJune 11, 2026 3:07 p.m. | Updated: June 11, 2026 3:11 p.m.
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With early in-person voting underway in advance of the June 23 primary, two of the county’s most influential public figures—U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin and former County Executive Ike Leggett—said Wednesday they will not be issuing late endorsements in this year’s contentious Democratic primary for county executive.
“I have no plans to endorse,” Raskin told Bethesda Today in a telephone interview Wednesday after laudatory statements he issued to each of three leading Democratic contenders had been posted on social media—leading to initial confusion about whether the five-term member of Congress had decided to support a particular candidate.
In a separate interview Wednesday, Leggett—who has not endorsed in the county executive race since leaving that post in 2018 after three terms—also told Bethesda Today he would remain neutral, despite being urged to weigh in and considering whether to do so.
“I think I owed that to myself, and to people who have looked up to me and who asked me questions about it,” Leggett said, adding, “I’ve decided I will not be endorsing.”
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Multiple sources indicated that Leggett had been the subject of intense efforts in recent weeks by supporters of the leading county executive candidates to take sides — in a tight race in which an endorsement such as his could help tip the scales.
As Leggett himself wryly acknowledged, “It’s been what I would say was a pretty active [period of] involvement of trying to see whether or not I would change my position.”
Leggett and Raskin are widely regarded as the two individual endorsements that are most coveted in Montgomery County political contests—and both, in fact, have weighed in on a number of down-ballot contests this year.
Since leaving elected office eight years ago, Leggett has remained publicly active as a member of two state panels dealing with education policy—and, at 81, has achieved an elder statesman status of sorts in his home county.
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Raskin, first elected to Congress in 2016, has seen his political clout grow locally as he assumed high-profile national roles in the two impeachments during President Donald Trump’s first term and the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
“[Chicago] Mayor [Richard] Daley was never one of my role models or inspirations: I’m not interested in becoming any kind of a political boss for our beautiful county,” Raskin quipped Wednesday, referring to the longtime political boss in Chicago during the 1950s through the 1970s. “I mean, the voters are the boss.”
Four years ago, Raskin did weigh in during the closing days of the Democratic primary for county executive, when incumbent Marc Elrich—who, like Raskin, is a long-time Takoma Park resident—was seeking a second term. Raskin’s endorsement helped push Elrich to a razor-thin, 32-vote primary victory over businessman David Blair.
Elrich is being forced from office this year by term limits, and three Democratic members of the County Council—Andrew Friedson, Evan Glass and Will Jawando—are the leading contenders to succeed him in a county in which victory in the Democratic primary has been tantamount to election in recent decades.
As he has done in several other local contests in the past, Raskin—in response to requests for support from Friedson, Glass and Jawando—issued laudatory comments about each. The statements from Raskin were posted by each candidate on their respective social media accounts starting late Tuesday.
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Each of the three Raskin statements cited the accomplishments of the candidates during their two-term tenures on the County Council, while ending with similar praise.
“Andrew shows the kind of leadership our county needs,” the Raskin statement on Friedson read.
Raskin praised Glass as “a strong public servant and a true leader for Montgomery County,” while saying of Jawando, “Will brings the kind of moral seriousness and democratic commitment that Montgomery County deserves in its political leaders.”
“We sent [the statements] out all at the same time to the campaigns, but it’s up to them when they released them, and in what context,” Raskin said.
Nonetheless, the statements caused confusion within political circles—with some who saw one of the candidate statements wondering if it represented an endorsement, without being aware of the other two sets of comments.
Asked about his practice of issuing laudatory statements while stopping short of endorsement in this contest as well as others in the past, Raskin responded: “I consider myself friends with each of these candidates [and] I think highly of the three candidates. This is true, by the way, in a lot of the contested races across the county. We only have one congressional representative for most of Montgomery County–and so people call me, and I totally wish them well.”
He added: “It seems to me there are two ways of remaining neutral in a race. One is you don’t say anything, and the other is you say nice things about each person … I’m wishing the candidates well, and I’m certainly hoping and watching for a positive campaign that will bring the county together, rather than be divisive.”
Asked about the tone of the county executive campaign, in which Friedson and Jawando have aired TV ads criticizing each other, Raskin took aim at so-called independent expenditure campaigns—such as the $1.2 million raised by Affordable Maryland, a so-called “super PAC” funded largely by real estate development interests that has aired TV ads criticizing both Jawando and Glass.
Super PACs—which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals as well as corporations and labor unions—were permitted under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.
“I’ve been a critic of the Citizens United decision, and big outside dark money that creates a lot of confusion in our politics,” Raskin said. “Under the banner of the First Amendment, we should be having meaningful, substantive debate and discussion, and it just seems to me that the big outside spending of ‘dark money’ does not advance debate, but rather creates paranoia in the process.”
“Obviously, we’re going to need to make changes at the national level to deal with that problem,” Raskin said, adding that, in the meantime, “voters should be as vigilant as possible about where messages are coming from–and about what things are being said and by who.”
Louis Peck, a contributing editor for Bethesda Magazine, can be reached at lou.peck@bethesdamagazine.com.
Read more about the Montgomery County primary elections at Bethesda Today’s voters guide.
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine