Pugh beats Dixon in mayoral primary

State Senator Catherine Pugh is now Baltimore’s presumptive mayor-elect after her victory in the Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday.

Current presidential front-runners Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton continued to solidify their leads, winning Maryland.

Pugh defeated a crowded field of Democrats, including former mayor Sheila Dixon, who was forced out of office in 2010 because of an embezzlement conviction. Pugh received 36.8 percent of the vote and beat Dixon by 2.4 percent. The rest of the candidates received less than 12 percent of the vote each.

Pugh’s platform pledged to increase investment in Baltimore’s public schools and its economy, restore police-community relations and reduce the crime rate. During her 15 years of public office, Pugh has served on the Baltimore City Council, the Maryland General Assembly and as Senate Majority Leader. She has also been active outside of public office, directing various initiatives in support of academic programs and scholarships for Baltimore’s youth.

Former WBAL radio anchor Alan Walden won the Republican mayoral nomination. However, in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans ten to one, he is unlikely to win in November.

The election turnout numbered roughly 130,000 in both the Democratic and Republican mayoral races, a significant increase from previous years.

Pugh’s victory has been attributed to a strong ground game and the accumulation of many endorsements from prominent local U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings. Pugh will become Baltimore’s third consecutive black woman to serve as mayor.

In the 14th District of the Baltimore City Council, which includes Charles Village, incumbent Mary Pat Clarke beat challenger Terrell Williams by 80 percent.

Leading up to Tuesday’s primary, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders held a rally in Baltimore on Saturday at Royal Farms Arena. The rally also featured Danny Glover and Ben Jealous. Many Hopkins students attended.

President of the Hopkins College Republicans Nitin Nainani attended the rally because he considers it important to understand the issues of both sides in the American political system.

“It’s important to participate in these political events and see the issues being brought up,” Nainani said. “Bernie’s speech for the most part shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was his general message, contrasting himself with Hillary Clinton. But he also included some elements that localized his speech and tailored it to the Baltimore area, whether it was on poverty, the educational system within the City or criminal justice reform.”

In an effort to increase student turnout, JHU for Bernie Sanders organized a march to the polls at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. The march was not solely for Sanders supporters, and its main goal was to encourage more students to go out and vote. Leading up to Tuesday, JHU for Bernie Sanders and College Republicans also handed out flyers to students that reminded them to vote and included directions to the nearest polling station.

After the polls closed on Tuesday, the results showed current front-runners of the Democratic and Republican primary contests extending their leads. The contests in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware solidified Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the nominees of their parties.

Trump won all five states with a majority of the vote. Clinton won in Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware, while Sanders beat her in Rhode Island. Including superdelegates, Clinton is now 90 percent of the way to reaching the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. Sanders has 1,355 delegates. With such a large lead, it is mathematically improbable for Sanders to catch up.

Nainani thinks that although Trump has a clearer shot at the nomination, he still has to prove himself in Indiana and California.

“It was obviously a great night for Trump, but it wasn’t a surprise for anyone. Many expected him to win all five states. At this point, the question is ‘Does trump hit 1237?’ Despite the narrative that Trump is inevitable, I don’t think that [question] has changed yet,” he said. “Trump’s success was a blow to the ‘Stop Trump’ movement that has been building, as Ted Cruz and John Kasich recently announced a plan to try to deny Trump votes in their stronger states.”

Sanders supporter and graduate student Jacob Kravetz says that despite Sanders’ disappointing losses on Tuesday, he has come further than most people expected. Kravetz noted that Sanders’ best chance is to earn enough of the remaining pledged delegates so that there is a contested convention.

“As a Bernie supporter and an overall progressive, I’d say it was a pretty dark day on both the Democratic and Republican sides for the country. [For the GOP], you had a buffoon and proto-fascist, who looks like he may be able to pull off a non-contested convention and on the Democratic side it is realistically impossible, barring a major comeback, that Bernie will be able to overtake Hillary in delegates. That could be hard,” he said. “He really has to win 30 percent of the remaining delegates in order to get enough delegates to prevent her from getting enough delegates to win without superdelegates.”

Nevertheless, Sanders intends to take his campaign to the convention in July, in hopes of influencing the Democratic base.

“I don’t think that Bernie shouldn’t be fighting for every vote. The more votes he gets, the more delegates he gets, the more leverage he gets to shape the party platform going forward. I think that Bernie Sanders is the only person not to run as President of the United States, he is running on the issues. He is an activist first and a politician second,” Kravetz said.

President-elect of the Hopkins College Democrats Cynthia Hadler, a junior and a Clinton supporter, spoke about Tuesday’s primaries.

“It clinches [the primary], and she can focus on the general election more. What I hope is that Bernie will tone down the attacks because those can be used by the Republicans when it comes to the general election. I think it would be problematic if he continues to divide the party,” she said.

In light of a likely Clinton-Trump matchup, Nainani attributed Trump’s popularity to the outsider politics that has overtaken this election cycle, a sentiment that has originally fueled Sanders’ rise.

“I know the temptation is to say that people like Trump because of xenophobia. I don’t think that’s the whole story here. Republican voters, I think, were over-promised by Republican politicians in 2010 and 2012. They have not delivered. ‘If you give us a senate majority, we will repeal Obamacare,’” Nainani said. “You can’t really do that when Obama is in office. Given the disparity in results, there’s the idea that politicians are corrupt and incompetent, and we need an outsider.”

Hadler believes that Sanders will continue to advance a progressive agenda, while Clinton needs to find a way to appeal to his supporters.

“I think he has a lot of good ideas. He kind of sets the tone. Every vote for Sanders is saying this is something I agree with. This brings congress’ attention to this issue and it could progress policy potentially,” she said. “Hillary doesn’t have anything that’s super inspirational. Obama had that, Bernie has that. She doesn’t have anything very ground-swelling, and she needs to turn that around for the general election.”