Chao Wu and Natalie Ziegler Win District 9A House of Delegates Seats

Chao Wu and Natalie Ziegler have won the two House of Delegates seats in District 9A, according to unofficial results from the State Board of Elections. The district spans parts of Howard and Montgomery counties.

As of 1:37 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, with all 18 Election Day precincts reporting, Wu had 17,274 votes and Ziegler had 16,967. Republican Fitzgerald Mofor was third with 10,927, 6,040 votes behind Ziegler. Moderately MOCO is calling the race based on the vote count. Ziegler’s 6,040-vote lead over Mofor for the second seat is larger than the 3,738 mail-in ballots left to count district-wide as of 6 p.m. Nov. 2, according to the State Board of Elections’ ballots-left-to-count report. Results are unofficial until every ballot is counted and the counties certify them.

Voters could choose up to two of the five candidates. Full results, with each county’s share, are on the State Board of Elections’ District 9A results page.

The candidates

• Chao Wu, Democrat, incumbent. Wu was elected in 2022 and served on the Howard County Board of Education from 2018 to 2022, according to his General Assembly profile.
• Natalie Ziegler, Democrat, incumbent. Ziegler was elected in 2022 and chairs the Howard County House Delegation, according to her General Assembly profile.
• Fitzgerald Mofor, Republican.
• Spencer Rhoda, Republican.
• Saif Rehman, unaffiliated. Rehman qualified for the ballot by petition, according to the State Board of Elections’ candidate list.

The state candidate list files Mofor and Rhoda under Montgomery County and Wu, Ziegler and Rehman under Howard County.

In the June primary, Ziegler received 6,933 votes and Wu received 6,825 for the two Democratic nominations, according to official primary results. Mofor received 2,089 votes and Rhoda received 2,067 for the two Republican nominations.

How much of District 9A is in Montgomery County

Montgomery County has 4 of District 9A’s 18 precincts, and Howard County has 14, according to the State Board of Elections’ precinct count. Montgomery had 11,454 of the district’s 65,781 eligible active voters as of Oct. 18, or 17.4%, according to state registration figures.

In 2022, Ziegler (17,656 votes) and Wu (17,486) won the district’s two seats. Republican Trent Kittleman finished third with 17,373, 113 votes behind Wu, according to official 2022 results. Kittleman led Wu by 471 votes in Howard County, and Wu led Kittleman by 584 votes in Montgomery County, according to the 2022 county breakdown.

The House of Delegates has 141 members, and delegates serve four-year terms that begin in January, under Article III of the Maryland Constitution.

What’s still to count

Each county counts its own ballots. The Montgomery County Board of Elections resumes counting Thursday, Nov. 5, then counts Nov. 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18, according to its canvass schedule, with provisional ballots at a later canvass. Howard County’s elections board posts its own schedule, and all local boards meet Friday, Nov. 13, to continue counting, the State Board of Elections says.

A mail-in ballot postmarked by Nov. 3 still counts if it arrives by 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 13, under state regulations. More Montgomery County results are on our live results page.

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