Mia Mason announced on Sunday that she is running for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District in 2024. This is the 20-year military veteran’s third congressional campaign — she also ran in Maryland’s 1st District in 2020 and 2022.
Incumbent Rep. David Trone (D) announced two months ago that he is running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Maryland, leaving the Democratic primary wide open. Maryland state Del. Joe Vogel announced his run for the seat in May and four more Democrats have jumped into the crowded field since then, making Mason the sixth Democrat to join the upcoming primary race. The deadline to file for candidacy is February 9, 2024.
“We’re running because we’re passionate about our communities, and ALL of the people in them,” Mason said in a press release. “We understand the struggles and challenges that we are facing right now, because we are listening to you, and because we’ve experienced them too.”
Mason said in her campaign announcement that she hopes to be the first trans woman to serve in Congress or one of the first in a cohort of trans women running for congressional seats in 2024.
“We also believe that Congress is intended to be representative of our country’s individuals, and currently, we are lacking a very specific and important voice,” Mason said. “We have never had a trans woman in Congress — that’s not identity politics. It’s embarrassing as a representative democracy. It’s a failure to serve not only transgender Americans but all Americans.”
Mason was the Democratic nominee in 2020 in the 1st District, losing to incumbent Republican Andrew Harris by 27 points. She dropped out of the congressional race in 2022 to focus on her family, as reported by Maryland Matters, endorsing former Del. Heather R. Mizeur.
Maryland’s 1st District has a larger Republican partisan lean with a R+25 partisan lean compared to the 6th District’s R+1 lean after redistricting in 2022, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Mason said in her campaign announcement that she is especially committed to “bringing transformative growth to our education system, our infrastructure, and how we interact with our planet.”
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified how many Democrats are currently in the 6th District congressional race. There are five other Democrats that have announced so far.
