The Baltimore Sun - GOP Official Donates to Kathy Szeliga's Campaign for Senate

News Article

By John Fritze

The executive director of the Maryland Republican Party has made a small donation to Del. Kathy Szeliga's campaign for Senate, bolstering the narrative that the Baltimore County lawmaker has the backing of the state party apparatus.

Joe Cluster, who has run the party's day-to-day operations since 2013, donated $250 to Szeliga's campaign. Though only a small contribution, the money runs counter to a general principle that party operatives do not take sides in primary elections.

In an email, Cluster said he made the donation as a private voter, not in his capacity with the party. He said he is not publicly endorsing Szeliga and said that Szeliga is a friend and that when she asked him for a donation he obliged.

Szeliga, the minority whip in the Maryland House of Delegates, is running in a crowded, 14-candidate race for the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski. Though the GOP will face an uphill fight in the general election in blue Maryland, Republicans point to Gov. Larry Hogan's win in 2014 as a model for success.

Hogan has not endorsed a candidate in the Senate race.

While Maryland Republicans have split loyalties in the presidential contest, Szeliga has locked down support from much of the state's GOP power structure. Though GOP candidate Chrys Kefalas had raised more money than Szeliga last year, he was campaigning months before she got into the contest. In the fourth quarter of 2015 -- her first quarter in the race -- Szeliga out-raised Kefalas by a four-to-one margin.

Public polling from The Baltimore Sun-University of Baltimore and The Washington Post-University of Maryland has shown Szeliga with a small lead in the race. Both of those polls also indicate that a vast majority of GOP voters in the state have not chosen a candidate.

Szeliga spokeswoman Leslie Shedd pointed to the campaign's endorsements, including from Rep. Andy Harris of Baltimore County (for whom Szeliga once worked) and Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh. "They realize if we want to defeat whichever career politician the Democrats back in November, we need a proven conservative leader like Kathy as the Republican nominee," Shedd said in a statement.

Source