Maryland Senate

2018 Election Update

After the 2014 election, Democrats controlled the Maryland State Senate 33-14. In the 2018 election, Democrats flipped one seat and lost two seats for a net loss of one seat. Democrats now control the Maryland State Senate 32-15.

Democrats flipped SD 9. Democrats lost SD 38 and SD 42.

Maryland State Senators serve four-year terms; the Maryland State Senate will be on the ballot again in 2022. See the table below for 2018 election results; the LDI scores are from the 2018 cycle.

Understanding the Map

EveryDistrict’s Legislative District Index (LDI) is the gold standard of state legislative competitiveness. Our LDI ranks state legislative districts on a scale from 100 to -100, using statewide elections data. Districts with a score of 100 would vote for statewide Democratic candidates by an average of 100 points (with the Democratic candidate receiving 100% of the vote); districts with a score of -100 would vote for statewide Republican candidates by an average of 100 points (with the Republican candidate receiving 100% of the vote). For a more realistic example, a district with a score of 10 would vote for statewide Democratic candidates by an average of 10 points (meaning we would expect the Democratic state legislative candidate to win with 55% of the vote compared to the Republican winning 45% of the vote).

After the 2018 election, EveryDistrict reviewed and enhanced our LDI system, improving the accuracy of the metric with new methodologies and the most recent electoral data.

For more information about EveryDistrict’s LDI, please click here.