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A diverse crowd estimated at 6,000 turned out to hear and cheer Sanders’ message of campaign finance reform and political revolution—at one point interrupting him with the chant, “Bernie Sanders has our back, we don’t need a super PAC.”

The Vermont senator continually railed against accepting the status quo in his hour-long address. Specifically, Sanders called attention to the poverty rates in Baltimore, where the overwhelming majority of public school children qualify for free or reduced lunches, describing conditions in many of the city’s struggling neighborhoods as unacceptable “in the richest country in the history of the world.”

He noted that life expectancy, infant mortality rates, and the health and economic outlooks for teenagers in some of Baltimore’s struggling neighborhoods rank among the worst in the world. He also called for a “Medicare for all” universal health system, an increase in social security benefits for seniors—“the people who built this country and raised us”—and free public college and university tuition.

Sanders said he would pay for an increase in social security benefits by lifting the current ceiling on the social security income tax, which is currently limited to annual income below $118,500, and public college education with a tax on Wall Street speculation.

Sanders was introduced by Baltimore activist Kwame Rose, who garnered national attention last April after confronting Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera during protests following the death of Freddie Gray; as well as Baltimore native Ben Jealous, the former head of the NAACP; actors Kendrick Sampson and Danny Glover; and state delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez.

“I’m in a race against a man who is spending more money than anyone ever has for a seat in Congress,” Gutierrez said afterward, referring to David Trone and her campaign to replace Rep. Chris Van Hollen in Montgomery County. “Bernie Sanders is right about getting money out of politics.”

Maryland’s Tuesday primary coincides with primaries in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Along with those states, it could prove to be the death knell of Sanders’ bid to catch Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton if he does not perform well.

Clinton’s rally in South Baltimore two weeks ago drew about 1,000 supporters, but the former secretary of state has earned the endorsement of Maryland’s elected officials, including Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, and Rep. Elijah Cummings. She has also led Sanders by a significant margin in state polling throughout the election season.

Other than drawing differences with Sanders on their gun control records, Clinton spent most of her speech in Baltimore going after Republican presidential primary leaders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, both of whom she characterized as promoting discrimination and bigotry

In his speech, however, Sanders focused on making distinctions between his positions and record, and Clinton’s positions and record on issues that included fracking, which he wants to ban; a national $15 minimum wage, which he supports; trade agreements, which he has opposed; and breaking up the big banks, such as Goldman Sachs, which he says continues to hold too much economic and political power. As he has done previously, Sanders also contrasted his vote against the war in Iraq and Clinton’s support for the war in 2002. He promised to spend money rebuilding American cities and not on “perpetual” war in the Middle East.

Sanders also told the crowd that people who tell them that the U.S. is poor are “lying” and that for the past 35-40 years “the wealth has been going to the top 1 percent.”

“We are going to have an economy that works for all,” Sanders said.

His supporters stressed the Sanders’ early civil rights activism as a college student and long advocacy since on behalf of women’s rights, LGBT rights, workers’ rights and environmental causes, such as climate change.

“Who else [but Bernie Sanders] would be shackling themselves to the leg of a black woman fighting for equality 50 years ago,” Rose asked the crowd during his introduction, referencing footage of a young Sanders during a Chicago segregation protest. “Who else would be touring the neighborhood of Freddie Gray?” continued Rose, referencing Sanders’ December visit to Sandtown and West Baltimore and meeting with local black pastors.

Maryland’s primary is April 26, with polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Early voting ended Thursday.

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The Democratic presidential frontrunner drew a crowd estimated by a fire department official at about 1,000 to City Garage, an innovation space near Port Covington that’s part of a development venture of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank.

Among those introducing Clinton were former U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Baltimore native, current Maryland U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski, and notably, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings—a staunch ally of Clinton during her Benghazi hearing last fall, who had remained neutral on the presidential primary until today.

Cummings praised Clinton’s advocacy on behalf of children’s health care initiatives and pay equity when she served in the U.S. Senate, as well as her work on imposing sanctions on Iran as secretary of state.

Cummings also directed words of praise toward her opponent, commending Sanders on bringing the issue of income and wealth inequality to the fore of the national debate and “spending your career fighting for peace and justice and universal health care.” But Cummings added, “I know Hillary Clinton.”

“Families in Baltimore who are hurting right now need more than the promise of a political revolution,” Cummings wrote earlier in an op-ed submitted to The Washington Post, in announcing his endorsement.

According to a University of Maryland/Washington Post poll released this week, Clinton leads Sanders by 15-point margin in the state. It’s a formidable advantage with the Maryland primary scheduled for April 26, but down from her 33-point margin in March in a University of Baltimore/Baltimore Sun poll.

Clinton only mentioned Baltimore briefly in her remarks, saying that if elected she’d invest significant federal dollars in places like West and East Baltimore. She added that she thought the city’s Red Line mass transit project, cancelled by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, “should have been completed.”

Clinton did not mention Freddie Gray, last April’s riot, or the subsequent protests and demands for political and criminal justice reform in Baltimore. When asked by Baltimore magazine following her address what it meant to be in Baltimore one year after the unrest here, Clinton said, “We have to restore faith in the criminal justice system.”

A handful of protestors were also on hand, including a small group that held up a sign reading “Clinton: What about mass incarceration?” and chanted “super predator”—references to policies and statements from the 1990s when her husband was president. Two individuals were also escorted out after shouting questions about the rights of Palestinians.

Mostly, however, it was a very enthusiastic Clinton crowd, which broke into loud applause throughout her speech—an address that ticked off nearly every Democratic issue from early childhood education and clean energy to a minimum wage increase and voting rights. Other than drawing distinctions with Sanders on their gun control records, Clinton spent most of her speech going after Republican presidential primary leaders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, both of whom she characterized as promoting discrimination and bigotry.

Sanders visited Baltimore in December, touring West Baltimore and meeting with local pastors.

While the crowd was largely white and perhaps not as racially diverse as Clinton might have wished for, it included many who have been looking forward to today since 2008 when they first hoped the former First Lady would break the biggest glass ceiling in the country.

“I’m so excited about Hillary’s campaign,” said Bronwyn Coltrane, who brought her 8-year-old daughter to the rally. “I was with her eight years ago and I’m glad she’s back.”

“Eight years ago, I walked into the [primary] voting booth wearing pins for both Hillary and Barack Obama, but I pulled the lever for President Obama,” said Darcy Sawatzki, who brought her 9-year-old daughter. “Since then, I’ve been waiting for my turn to pull the lever for Hillary.”

Early primary voting in Maryland begins April 14 with same-day registration offered during the early voting period—which continues through April 21— for the first time ever this year. Early voting centers in the state can be found here.

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Conducted by OpinionWorks, an Annapolis-based firm, for The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore, the survey shows Pugh as the top choice of 31 percent of the 400 likely voters surveyed. Dixon came in second, earning the support of 25 percent of likely Democratic primary voters.

Elizabeth Embry, who served as chief of the criminal division in the Maryland state’s attorney general’s office before running for office, came in third with 9 percent of the tally. She was followed by investor and philanthropist David Warnock at 7 percent. City Councilmen Carl Stokes and Nick Mosby each received the support of 5 percent of those polled. DeRay Mckesson, a national Black Lives Matter activist with Baltimore roots recently endorsed by John Waters, and the rest of the field received less than 1 percent support. Fourteen percent of likely Democratic voters remain undecided.

“Senator Pugh is clearly the one in command now in this race,” Steve Raabe, president of OpinionWorks, told The Sun. “She is leading and widening her lead.”

Dixon campaign manager Anthony Jones pushed back against the poll results, saying that the survey failed to include 20,000 ex-offenders, who had recently received the right to vote. He also noted that the same pollster had been wrong about the most Maryland governor’s race three weeks before that election.

“When The Sun poll was taken over last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, we had just begun our advertising campaign, whereas our opponents had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars driving their message on the airwaves in the previous six weeks before the poll,” Jones said in an email release. “We are confident that Sheila Dixon’s proven track record of reducing crime and her deep connection to the community will be at the forefront of voters’ minds as they head to the polls starting a week from today.”

Embry’s campaign manager, on the other hand, noting the poll showed his candidate moving several others into third place, said in an email that time still remains in the race for more changes.

“Thirty-eight percent of voters are still soft in their support for other candidates and might change their vote,” Coon said. “The race is still very fluid and Elizabeth has room to grow.”

Pugh, however, was also the leading “second choice” among likely voters with 23 percent of that tally, followed by Dixon at 12 percent.

For the first time ever, the mayor’s race is coinciding with the presidential election, which is expected to boost turnout at the primary. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an unexpectedly competitive race with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, announced today that she will be making a campaign stop in Maryland Sunday.

Also coinciding with the mayor’s race is a very competitive U.S. Senate race between U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards and U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen.

Early primary voting in Maryland begins April 14 with same-day registration offered during the early voting period—which continues through April 21— for the first time ever this year. Early voting centers in the state can be found here.

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Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley announced that he was suspending his presidential bid after failing to win over Iowa democratic primary voters, earning less than 1 percent of the delegate tally in the state’s caucus.

As O’Malley noted in ending his struggling campaign Monday night, “Iowa has been like a second home” for the 53-year-old candidate for the past year. Nonetheless, an inability to connect with Hawkeye state voters on the ground; the unexpected success of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ progressive message; unrest in Baltimore, where O’Malley, of course, served as mayor; as well as mediocre debate performances against rivals with more national experience—notably frontrunner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—kept O’Malley from registering more than low single digits in polls all primary season.

The winner, however, of the Iowa primary for the Democrats remained up in the air late Monday night, with Clinton and Sanders essentially splitting the vote and delegate tally.

On the Republican ledger, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was the clear winner, with 28 percent of the GOP vote. He was followed by businessman Donald Trump with 24 percent and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 23 percent.

Former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a political newcomer, who at one time led in the Iowa polls, fell to fourth, registering 9 percent of the tally.

Carson’s slip in the Iowa polls in late November, while certainly disappointing to his supporters, was not completely unexpected by Maryland GOP observers.

“Politics is a contact sport and Ben Carson is not contact person—he’s a nice guy and a genius in his field,” said Joe Custer, executive director of the Maryland Republican Party.

Custer, in an interview Friday, said that he thought Rubio was picking up momentum with more people in the Republican establishment getting behind his candidacy in recent weeks—which was reflected in subsequent Iowa numbers.

Neither Custer and Greg Kline, of the blog Red Maryland, offered support for Trump’s campaign, doubting the real estate developer’s commitment to conservative causes. “It’s very disconcerting,” said Kline, a Cruz supporter, of the former reality TV star’s popularity among the GOP electorate. “He connects with people [who are frustrated with the direction of the country], but he’s a very imperfect vessel. He could be very damaging to conservative principles.”

Towson University communications studies professor Richard Vatz, a longtime, conservative political observer, expressed similarly strong reservations about Trump’s campaign, adding that he’s backing Rubio at this point.

On the other side, Vatz, though certainly not a Sanders supporter, said it’s easy to see why the 74-year-old senator’s populist economic agenda and campaign has surpassed expectations: “He’s authentic,” Vatz says. “There’s no political trickery. He says what he means and that’s that. If you don’t agree, he says ‘fine.’ He doesn’t say one thing to one group of people and then something else to another group of people.”

Todd Eberly, director of Public Policy Studies at St. Mary’s College, said he finds Sanders success to date even more surprising than the rise of Trump—a political rookie—in national polls. But he puts part of the blame at Clinton’s feet.

“It’s amazing to me that she’s making the same mistake she made in 2008, which is running a [a centrist] general election campaign in Democratic primaries,” Eberly said.

In national polls, however, as well as in Maryland, where she out-tallied Sanders by 13 percent (40-27 percent) in the most recent Gonzales poll, Clinton still maintains a healthy lead.

Trump—despite the aforementioned concerns among some state GOP activists—topped the Gonzales poll in Maryland, garnering 32 percent of the Republican vote. He was followed Cruz (15 percent), Rubio (13.6 percent] and Carson (9.3 percent.)

Up next: the New Hampshire primary scheduled for Feb. 9.

Our chance to weigh-in on all this in the Maryland primaries? Not until April 26.

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At the outset of the 20-minute walk through one of the city’s most challenging communities, Bryant, pastor of the Empowerment Temple Church, pointed to the bail bonds offices and liquor stores, noting the lack of resources and investment in the area. “This is the kind of businesses we have here,” Bryant told Sanders.

Followed by a throng of media and growing number of local residents, Sanders eventually made his way past at least a dozen boarded up homes to the prominent Freddie Gray mural near Gilmor Elementary School and the Gilmor Homes public housing complex.

“This is where you need to be,” a young mother said to Sanders. “We need day care, we need after-school programs. We need stuff for them [students] to do so there won’t be another riot.”

After touring Sandtown, Sanders returned to the Freddie Gray Empowerment Center at Eutaw Place for an “Ecumenical Roundtable Discussion” with Baltimore faith and social justice leaders to discuss issues of poverty, education, housing, mass incarceration, disparate sentencing, and economic development, including greater investments in urban infrastructure.

“I think it was very worthwhile,” said Rev. Donté L. Hickman Sr. afterward. “I think it’s important not only to see, but to gain a feeling for what’s happening in our urban neighborhoods. I think our pastors came in with thoughtful questions as well for him, and Senator Sanders listened closely to our concerns and what we said we need in our communities.

“For being from Vermont, my first impression was that he is someone who wants to work toward progress,” Hickman added, “and that he is sensitive and empathetic to the issues that persist and affect people in urban communities.”

At one point during his walk, someone asked Sanders directly, “Why are you in Baltimore?”

“Because we have to end the national tragedy of people going to jail, rather than being in school or going to work,” responded Sanders, who maintained a serious, if quiet, demeanor throughout the morning. Time magazine announced Monday that Sanders, who is trailing well behind former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in Democratic primary polls, won the magazine’s readers’ poll for “Person of the Year.”

Sandtown resident Larry Brown praised Sanders for taking the initiative to visit his neighborhood. “You don’t see many people like that get out of the cars and take the time to walk around,” said Brown, who said he knew Gray well. “Most people are too scared. But we need resources.”

“I told him to keep it real,” said Leona Berry-Bova, who hugged Sanders after the senator stood in front of the Gray mural, created by the Baltimore street artist known as Nether. “I told him, ‘You can’t let anyone take your faith away.’”

“We have 2.2 million people in jail,” said Sanders, adding that the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country. “We’re spending $80 billion a year locking up fellow Americans. Even some of my conservative friends realize that this doesn’t work.” After the walking tour and meeting with local pastors, Sanders met with the media briefly for a press conference. Sanders did not talk about Freddie Gray specifically, or the ongoing trial of William Porter, the first Baltimore officer of the six to be tried. However, he did highlight criminal justice reform issues overall, which he called the social justice issue of the 21st century.

To reduce recidivism and the allure of crime, Sanders called for more educational resources, more job training, and improved housing. Sanders also said the police departments need “to look like the communities they serve.”

He also spoke of “the high cost of being poor,” referring to the increased interest rates paid in working class communities, and more expensive, yet less nutritional food options, which drew some applause from the pastors. Sanders added that anyone who “took the walk that we took around this neighborhood” would not believe that they were in the wealthiest country in the world. “You would think that you were in a Third World country.”

Sanders also reiterated his main campaign theme that over the past 30 years “there has been a massive transference of wealth from working families to the top 1 percent.” He noted he has introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and supports free tuition at public colleges and universities.

Toward the end, one member of the media raised a hand, inquiring why a Sanders’ staffer had earlier suggested that journalists keep the focus on the issues facing West Baltimore, rather than questions about ISIS, for example.

“I’ll talk about ISIS, but today what we’re talking about is a community in which half the people don’t have jobs,” said Sanders, his voice rising, again to applause from some of the pastors standing behind him. “We’re talking about a community in which hundreds of buildings are uninhabitable. Obviously, the issues around ISIS are hugely important. So is poverty and education.”

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And the big question at the moment among the national media seems to be whether O’Malley—who put together a compelling resume of liberal accomplishments during his two terms in Annapolis—can finally gain some traction in a campaign that has thus far barely registered a blip on the radar.

In a poll released last week by Goucher College, O’Malley registered just two percent of support among Maryland Democratic voters, which was only slightly better than the most recent CBS national poll where he managed just an asterisk—indicating less than .5 percent of the tally.

By contrast, Clinton, the former Secretary of State, and Sanders, the Vermont senator, registered 46 and 27 percent support, respectively, in the CBS poll (below). Vice president Joe Biden, who has not yet decided whether he will run, even posted at 16 percent.

O’Malley has been loudly pushing for more Democratic debates in recent weeks—not an unusual tactic for an underdog. But beyond mere desperation, the former prosecutor, city councilman, and Baltimore mayor most likely feels confident he can hold his own on stage with Clinton and Sanders, as well as with Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, who are also struggling at the bottom of the polls. (Whether he eventually decides to run or not, Biden is expected to skip the first debate.)

When he ran against Republican Bob Ehrlich in 2010, O’Malley was generally seen as the better debater. And while his speeches at the 2004 and 2012 Democratic National Conventions flopped—his oratory often comes across as overblown—O’Malley is a studious politician who always has his numbers and facts on the tip of his tongue. He also isn’t afraid of being combative, a trait that often came across in his Sunday morning talk show appearances when he served as chairman of the Democratic Governor’s Association.

If anything, the challenge Tuesday night might be for O’Malley to combine his natural instinct for data (see CitiStat and StateStat initiatives) with a sense of humor, likeability, and charisma—which has been difficult in the past for him to transmit via television. O’Malley didn’t come up with a five- or 10-point plan for how he would govern as president, but a 15-point plan—overkill in the age of Twitter and sound bites.

In recent days, O’Malley has gone after Clinton for “shifting positions” on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and Sanders for not supporting “common sense” gun control measures. Also, just the opportunity to stand next to Clinton and Sanders, both a generation older than the O’Malley, could help the famously fit O’Malley present a younger option for potential Democratic voters—a la Bill Clinton and Al Gore circa 1992.

“I think right now most people in the Democratic Party think they only have two choices,” O’Malley acknowledged during in a recent Washington Post interview. “It’s malpractice as a party to have waited so long to begin our debates. Eight years ago, we had already had nine debates. But now we’ll finally have our first, and finally we’ll get the opportunity to make our case to the American people.”

Of course, no one in Maryland was surprised when O’Malley launched his campaign earlier this year in Federal Hill. The move seemed like a mere formality after passing a series of liberal agenda items during his second term, including Maryland’s same-sex marriage law; the Dream Act (to assist undocumented immigrants with in-state tuition); a new, partisan congressional map; and stricter gun controls regulations following the mass school shooting in Newton, CT.

In fact,
in Baltimore, many—including us—have believed an O’Malley presidential campaign
has been inevitable since his days as a city councilman.

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And then he officially announced his bid for the White House in 2016, declaring that the presidency of the United States wasn’t a crown to be passed back and forth between two families.

“Recently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he’d be just fine with either Bush or Clinton,” O’Malley recounted for the crowd. “Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street—the presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.”

The biggest question today wasn’t whether Martin O’Malley was going to announce a presidential bid—that’s been assumed forever as we noted in a profile two years ago—but who would turn out to support him.

O’Malley, a staunch backer of Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton’s run in 2008, doesn’t have a natural constituency in the way that the former first lady and secretary of state does in her bid to become the first woman to win the nation’s highest office. Nor does he have socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sander’s built-in progressive following.

None of the city or state’s major politicos were on stage with O’Malley—other than his father-in-law, the long-serving, former Maryland attorney general Joseph Curran.

Even in his adopted hometown, O’Malley’s legacy in light of the Freddie Gray riots has taken a darker hue recently. His administration’s “zero tolerance” toward crime—while seen as effective in reducing violence in the city at the time—has also been blamed for engendering poor relationships between struggling neighborhoods in the city and the police department. In fact, the ACLU and NAACP sued and won a settlement from the O’Malley administration in the aftermath of his mass arrest policies. And one local activist group, Baltimore Bloc, led a protest of O’Malley’s announcement at Federal Hill.

That said, there are plenty of reasons why O’Malley’s record as both mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland might appeal to Democratic primary voters. He’s credited with reducing lead poisoning in the city as mayor, adding drug treatment services, and making city services, like trash pick up, more efficient. As governor, he successfully fought to end the death penalty in the state, to make same-sex marriage legal, to strengthen gun control measures, and to pass a Dream Act for young immigrants brought here by their parents.

During his announcement speech, O’Malley plugged his efforts to keep college tuition in check in Maryland while governor as well as his commitment to the state public school system, which has generally been ranked among the best in the country.

He also highlighted his middle class background, including the lift his father received from the G.I. Bill as a World War II veteran, and took shots at Wall Street’s influence and power, sticking to a populist economic message throughout his announcement: “Tell me how it is, that you can get pulled over for a broken tail light in our country, but if you wreck the nation’s economy you are untouchable.”

But at the moment, the continued blight in many Baltimore neighborhoods—though certainly driven by long-term national economic and political trends as much as anything else—and his administration’s crime and policing policies are viewed as albatrosses around O’Malley’s bid.

O’Malley didn’t address the recent violence in Baltimore at length in his remarks, but made it clear that more needs to be done directly, including raising the minimum wage, to end “the scourge of hopelessness” in challenged urban areas. “Conditions of extreme poverty,” O’Malley said, “breed conditions of extreme violence.”

O’Malley, who has never backed away from his record in Baltimore, also touted the widely-praised CitiStat and StateStat efficiency initiatives that he implemented first as mayor and then as governor.

But how exactly O’Malley will raise his profile and standing among potential primary voters outside of Maryland isn’t clear.

In the most recent Quinnipiac poll, he ticked just 1 percent of support among potential Democratic voters, well behind not only Clinton, at 57 percent, but Sanders, at 15 percent. Still, with just three candidates officially entered in the Democratic race—although former Rhode Island senator and governor Lincoln Chafee is expected to join the field next week—there would appear to be enough elbow room between the centrist Clinton and ultra-progressive Sanders to create a running lane. One major difference, of course, from Clinton and Sanders is O’Malley’s age—at 52, he’s a generation younger than either one of those candidates.

“I think he has shown vision with his ideas for improving health care and education in the state of Maryland,” said O’Malley supporter Joan Floura, a small business owner who lives in Govans and has two children in Baltimore City public schools. “We need a fresh approach to government and something new—not the same old thing.”

How much traction he ultimately gains remains to be seen, but there’s certainly nowhere to go but up at this point for the never-shy O’Malley—off to Iowa today to win over that caucus voters there.

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