Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett is declining to endorse Jealous for now because of concerns that Jealous’s positions on taxes, school funding and Amazon.com’s second headquarters would penalize Leggett’s constituents in the state’s most populous jurisdiction.
Long-serving Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), an influential moderate, offered only tepid backing for Jealous while praising Hogan for “governing from the middle.”
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Jealous, a former NAACP president seeking office for the first time, easily beat five main rivals in the primary, buoyed by support from unions and local and national progressive politicians and groups. On Friday, he was endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
During the primary, almost all of Maryland’s elected Democratic leaders backed Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, who finished a distant second.
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“My first responsibility is to Montgomery County,” said Leggett. Leggett said he’s concerned its residents would suffer unfairly from Jealous’s proposal to pay for programs in part by raising the state income tax by one percentage point on the top 1 percent of earners.
Emphasis: 1 percentage point.