More Osprey Reproduction Problems Found Around the Chesapeake Bay

Timothy B. Wheeler, Bay Journal • September 3, 2024

Fishery managers debate 'precautionary' menhaden harvest closures

Perched on a nest atop a green navigation marker in Maryland’s Harris Creek, the osprey glared, spread its wings and started hopping as a boatload of people drew near.

“That’s a pretty big nestling standing up,” observed Barnett Rattner, a veteran scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Eastern Ecological Science Center. “Last week, there were two.”

Peering at the agitated fish hawk through binoculars, Rattner spied the telltale reddish-orange eyes of a juvenile, so the boat halted its approach. They didn’t want to spook the youngster into trying to fly before it was able. It would almost certainly fall in the water and drown — perhaps the fate of its missing nestmate.

Rattner and USGS wildlife biologist Dan Day have been visiting osprey nests around Tilghman Island on Maryland’s Eastern Shore every seven to 10 days since early spring. They’re part of a multi-pronged effort to assess the birds’ breeding success around the Chesapeake Bay following a troubling report last year of a drastic reproduction decline in Virginia’s Mobjack Bay.

This year, researchers have been monitoring more than 600 breeding pairs of osprey in a dozen locations to see if the problem is happening elsewhere. They have been checking nests in 10 areas along both shores of the Chesapeake where menhaden, a favorite prey of ospreys, usually can be found. They’re also looking in two freshwater locations on Bay rivers where osprey rely on different fish for food.

The Chesapeake boasts the world’s largest breeding population of ospreys, estimated at 10,000 to 12,000 pairs. They have staged a remarkable comeback since the 1970s, when contamination from the pesticide DDT, ingested by ospreys from the fish they ate, devastated their ability to produce offspring. The federal government banned DDT in 1972.

While toxic chemicals still exist in the environment, the overall population of Bay ospreys continues to grow. But now, scientists are exploring a new potential threat: a lack of fish for ospreys to feed on.

Food shortage linked

In 2023, scientists with the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary reported seeing a steep decline in osprey reproduction in Virginia’s Mobjack Bay, which lies between the Rappahannock and York rivers. They linked the breeding woes — even worse than in the DDT era — to a shortage of food, particularly Atlantic menhaden, a migratory fish that is the birds’ dietary staple there.

That finding has turned up the heat on a long-running controversy. Recreational anglers and conservationists have complained for years that large commercial harvests of menhaden near the mouth of the Bay in Virginia are harming other fish, especially Atlantic striped bass, which rely upon menhaden for food. That fleet works for Omega Protein, a subsidiary of a Canadian company that processes the menhaden at a plant in Reedville into animal feed and nutritional supplements.

The complaint has gone nowhere, in part because data are lacking on how abundant or scarce menhaden are in the Bay. Now, though, the report of nest failures in Mobjack Bay has given advocates fresh ammunition to press for a clampdown on the Chesapeake menhaden harvest. Following an Aug. 6 briefing by USGS scientists about osprey reproduction issues, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the menhaden catch along the East Coast, voted to study whether to impose seasonal closures of large-scale harvests of the fish in the Bay.

What the USGS scientists have seen so far in mid-Bay Maryland is similar to what the researchers reported in Virginia. Ospreys occupied only a little more than half of the 90 platforms, navigational markers and other available nesting sites where the two USGS scientists saw ospreys in their study area, which stretches from lower Broad Creek into Harris Creek and then around the western side of Tilghman Island.

The vast majority of those ospreys that did nest failed to produce or maintain young. By mid-July, there were many more empty nests than those that had even a single chick, much less two or three. Cruising down Harris Creek, Rattner pointed to one loss after another: “That one had eggs in it. It failed. That one never got started.”

During his 47-year career with the USGS, Rattner has studied ospreys in several Maryland and Virginia rivers of the Chesapeake, as well as in Delaware Bay. As an ecotoxicologist, he was researching whether pesticides and other toxic chemicals in fish might be affecting the birds’ reproduction or survival. The good news is that, while there are still some areas of concern, contaminants are decreasing and don’t appear to be affecting the overall osprey population in the Bay watershed.

But Rattner said the rate of successful breeding he and Day have seen in their Eastern Shore study area this year is far below what he saw 10 to 20 years ago.

Multiple reasons for failure

“All kinds of things happen to nests,” Rattner pointed out. Crows may feed on eggs if a nest is left unguarded even briefly. Great horned owls and bald eagles snatch chicks. Storms can blow nests off platforms. Diseases take a toll, as does the relentless summer heat. And some osprey pairs — perhaps rookies at breeding — build a nest but don’t produce eggs.

On a scorching day in mid-July, female ospreys were perched on some nests, wings outstretched in a few cases to shield the young beneath from the broiling sun. The males usually hunt for fish while the females stay on the nest.

To see if food availability might be a factor, Rattner and Day have mounted battery-operated cameras in four nests to monitor the number and type of fish the adults bring back to the nest. In one photo sequence, a male osprey delivered a juvenile striped bass for two chicks to consume.

There have been glitches with the cameras, though. The scientists have had to replace batteries and make other adjustments, including shifting at least one camera from a failed nest to one with eggs or chicks.

One year’s fieldwork is just a snapshot, of course. Rattner said that more research is needed to identify trends and fill data gaps.

And the apparent surge in nest failures does not mean the Chesapeake osprey population is in danger of collapsing — at least not anytime soon, said Bryan Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology. Ospreys nesting upriver in the Bay watershed are still producing plenty of offspring, and the overall population continues to grow.

“This is a long-lived species,” Watts said. “With lifespans averaging 15 to 20 years, they can withstand a dip in reproduction.”

But because ospreys subsist almost exclusively on fish, he said, they are a good indicator of fish abundance. That’s the main reason for the nest surveys, he added.

To date, Mobjack Bay is the only place with direct scientific evidence that menhaden — or their apparent scarcity — influenced osprey reproduction. There, scientists conducted a controlled experiment, feeding some newly hatched birds an extra ration of menhaden and comparing their better survival with those subsisting on what could be caught in the wild.

Watts suggested that high rates of nest failure seen in the areas where menhaden are usually abundant provide circumstantial evidence that food availability played a role.

Sign of food stress

“A high proportion of failures after hatching and a larger proportion of one-chick broods is a clear sign of food stress,” he said. For example, along Maryland’s Patuxent River, one of the areas Watts monitored this year, almost 60% of osprey pairs that successfully reproduced had one-chick broods.

Greg Kearns, a naturalist with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission who’s been banding and monitoring ospreys on the Patuxent for 40 years, said he’d seen a significant drop this year in the number of ospreys attempting to nest.

And by early July, Kearns said he’d seen a lot of failed nests, particularly along the lower river, where menhaden traditionally make up the bulk of the ospreys’ diet.

There was something off about this nesting season almost from the beginning, Watts said. Ospreys returned to the Bay as usual in late February and early March after wintering in South America and the Caribbean. But many didn’t lay eggs in early spring or at all, he said. And many of the eggs laid in late spring either didn’t hatch or the chicks didn’t survive as summer temperatures climbed into the 90s.

“I think that the birds were squeezed with low food availability,” he said, “then ran into the heat wave.”

There were anecdotal reports that the schools of menhaden that return to the Bay every spring after wintering off the mid-Atlantic coast didn’t show up on time or at all this year. Some have suggested the Bay’s unusually low salinity the first half of the year after a wet winter and spring may have deterred them.

Of course, there may also be other factors affecting ospreys’ reproduction. Pete McGowan, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he suspects that nest predation has been a big factor in a near total failure of ospreys to produce young on Poplar Island, which is in the middle of the Bay about a mile west of Tilghman Island in Maryland. Only three nests out of 25 begun in the spring are still active, he said, with just one chick in each.

Poplar Island is not one of the 12 sites Watts and colleagues have been monitoring, but Watts suggested that at least some of those nest failures could still be an indirect result of food stress. If the male osprey doesn’t bring enough fish, the female may leave the nest unguarded to search herself, leaving it open to predators.

Fishery study delayed

So far, fisheries managers are not convinced that there’s a problem with menhaden. A 2022 stock assessment concluded that the coastwide population of the forage fish is not being overharvested. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees near-shore fisheries from Maine to Florida, has for several years maintained a cap on the commercial harvest of menhaden in the Chesapeake. Conservationists and angler groups, however, contend that the cap is too loose and that the Virginia-based fishing fleet is depleting the stock there.

There’s been no study, though, to settle that dispute. Virginia lawmakers agreed in 2023 to draw up plans for a study, but this year they decided to wait until 2025 to decide whether to conduct the research. Meanwhile, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission has rejected petitions calling for a moratorium in Bay waters of the type of purse-seine harvesting performed by Omega’s fleet. Angler groups have gone to court seeking to force a cutback.

At the Aug. 6 meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, Lynn Fegley, fisheries director for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources, urged the body to adopt seasonal closures of large-scale menhaden harvests in the Chesapeake as a precaution to ensure that osprey and other fish-eating birds and fish have enough to sustain themselves. She said the state's commercial watermen are also suffering because menhaden are the preferred bait for harvesting blue crabs, the state's most lucrative fishery.

Other commission members countered that there are a number of factors affecting osprey reproduction, including competition for food from other birds and fish. They also noted that warming waters from climate change may be prompting some fish populations to shift farther north and away from the Bay. Pat Geer, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission's fisheries chief, argued that without more scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate to single out the state's Omega fleet for seasonal harvest closures.

The commission staff is in the process of updating "ecological reference points" it had adopted in 2020 to ensure there are enough menhaden left unharvested to sustain fish-eating birds and other fish.

Fegley's motion, which would have set the commission on a course to impose seasonal closures, failed. Then Allison Colden, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and a commission member, proposed instead that a work group be formed to evaluate options for "precautionary" management of menhaden in the Bay, including possibly seasonal closures. It passed unanimously. The group is to make at least a preliminary report at the commission's next meeting in October.

This article was originally published in the Bay Journal, a non-profit news source that provides the public with independent reporting on environmental news and issues in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

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Common Sense for the Eastern Shore

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free”

By John Christie • February 17, 2026

These are the words from Emma Lazarus’ famous 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus” inscribed on a bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. In 1990, Congress reaffirmed this vision of America by establishing the Temporary Protected Status program. TPS is designed to provide humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries. In its present form, the TPS legislation gives the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security responsibility for the program. However, the legislation prescribes the kind of country conditions severe enough to warrant a designation under the statute, the specific time frame for any such designation, and the process for periodic review of a TPS designation which could culminate in termination or extension. All initial TPS designations last from six to eighteen months. Before the expiration of a designation, the statute mandates that the Secretary shall review the conditions in the foreign state to decide if the conditions for the designation continue to be met, following consultation with appropriate agencies of the government. Extension is the default; the designation “shall be extended” unless the secretary affirmatively determines that conditions are “no longer met.” ------------------------------------------------------------- A massive earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010, and precipitated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Shortly after, then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, after consultation with the State Department, designated Haiti for TPS due to “extraordinary conditions.” Haitian nationals in the United States continuously as of January 12, 2010, could thus apply for TPS, and obtained the right to remain and work in the U.S. while Haiti maintained its TPS designation. Napolitano set the initial TPS designation for 18 months. As Haiti’s deterioration worsened, successive DHS secretaries have extended this program. Gang violence and kidnappings have spiked. In 2021, a group of assailants killed Haiti’s then-President Jovenel Moïse. In 2023, another catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti. In 2024, in response to these conditions, then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas once again extended and redesignated Haiti for TPS, this time effective through February 3, 2026. During the 2024 election cycle, the GOP candidate, Donald Trump clearly indicated that time had not tempered his views on Haiti, characterized by him as a “shithole country” during his first term. He stated that when elected, he would “absolutely revoke” Haiti’s TPS designation and send “them back to their country.” On December 1, 2025, Kristi Noem, DHS secretary in the second Trump administration, announced, “I just met with the president. I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies. Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom, not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owned to Americans. We don’t want them, not one.” So says the official responsible for overseeing the TPS program. And one of those (her word) “damn” countries is Haiti. Three days before making the above post, Secretary Noem announced she would terminate Haiti’s TPS designation as of February 3, 2026. Five Haitian TPS holders filed suit in federal court in Washington initially seeking an injunction against the termination of the Haitian TPS program pending the completion of the litigation. These plaintiff TPS holders are not “killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies.” They are instead a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease, a software engineer at a national bank, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department, a college economics major, and a full-time registered nurse. The case was assigned to district court judge Ana Reyes who granted the plaintiffs’ injunction request on February 2, 2026, by way of an 83-page opinion. The plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision because of hostility to non-white immigrants. According to Judge Reyes, “This seems substantially likely. Secretary Noem has terminated every TPS country designation to have reached her desk — twelve countries up, twelve countries down.” Judge Reyes also decided that Noem’s conclusion that Haiti (a majority non-white country) faces only “merely concerning” conditions cannot be squared with the “perfect storm” of “suffering and staggering” humanitarian toll described in page after page of the record in the case. In Judge Reyes’ view, Noem also ignored Congress’s requirement that she review the conditions in Haiti “after consulting with appropriate agencies.” Indeed, the record indicates she did not consult other agencies at all. Her “national interest” analysis focuses on Haitians outside the United States or here illegally, ignoring that Haitian TPS holders already live here and legally so. And though Noem states that the analysis must include “economic considerations,” Judge Reyes concluded Noem ignored altogether the billions that Haitian TPS holders contribute to the economy. The administration’s primary response in the litigation has been to assert that the TPS statute gives Secretary Noem “unbounded” discretion to make whatever determination she wants, any way she wants. Yes, Judge Reyes acknowledges, the statute does grant Noem some discretion. But, in Judge Reyes’ opinion, “not unbounded discretion.” To the contrary, Congress passed the TPS statute to standardize the then ad hoc temporary protection system; in Judge Reyes’ words, "to replace executive whim with statutory predictability.” The administration also argued that the harms to Haitian TPS holders were “speculative” if they are forced to return to Haiti. Because the State Department presently warns, “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason,” the administration asserts that harm is “speculative” only because DHS “might not” remove them. However, according to Judge Reyes, this argument fails to take Secretary Noem at her word: “We don’t want them. Not one.” The public interest also favors the injunction, in the opinion of Judge Reyes. Secretary Noem complains of the strains that unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Noem’s answer is to turn 352,959 lawful TPS Haitian immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. Noem complains of strains to our economy; her answer is to turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. Noem complains of strains to our health care system. Noem’s answer is to turn the insured into the uninsured. “This approach is many things – but the public interest is not one of them,” according to Judge Reyes. The opinion of Judge Reyes concludes: “Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the law to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that. The administration has already appealed. John Christie was for many years a senior partner in a large Washington, D.C. law firm. He specialized in anti-trust litigation and developed a keen interest in the U.S. Supreme Court about which he lectures and writes.

Gov. Moore Signs Legislation to Prohibit Md. Jurisdictions from Deputizing Officers for Federal Civil Immigration Enforcement

By Office of the Governor • February 16, 2026

Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation on February 17, 2026, to prohibit State and local jurisdictions from deputizing officers for federal civil immigration enforcement activity. The law, created under SB 245/HB 444 , is effective immediately. “In Maryland, we defend Constitutional rights and Constitutional policing — and we will not allow untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable ICE agents to deputize our law enforcement officers,” Moore said. “This bill draws a clear line: we will continue to work with federal partners to hold violent offenders accountable, but we refuse to blur the lines between state and federal authority in ways that undermine the trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Maryland is a community of immigrants, and that's one of our greatest strengths because this country is incomplete without each and every one of us.” “As an immigrant, this bill is deeply personal to me,” said Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller. “Immigrants make Maryland stronger every day, and our communities are safer when everyone feels protected and valued. This legislation ensures that our law enforcement resources remain focused on keeping Marylanders safe, not on actions that create fear in our neighborhoods. I thank the bill sponsors and Governor Moore for their leadership in ensuring Maryland remains a place where dignity and opportunity go hand in hand.” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, established its 287(g) program to authorize local law enforcement officials to perform federal civil immigration enforcement functions under ICE’s oversight. Under SB 245/HB 444, State and local jurisdictions in Maryland are prohibited from engaging in such agreements. Any local jurisdictions with standing 287(g) agreements must terminate them immediately. The legislation does not: Authorize the release of criminals Impact State policies and practices in response to immigration detainers that are issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Prevent the State or local jurisdictions from continuing to work with the federal government on shared public safety priorities, including the removal of violent criminals who pose a risk to public safety Prevent State or local jurisdictions from continuing to notify ICE about the impending release of an individual of interest from custody or from coordinating the safe transfer of custody within constitutional limits State and local law enforcement will also maintain the ability to work with the federal government on criminal investigations and joint task forces unrelated to civil immigration enforcement. Any individual who is charged with a crime is entitled to due process and, if convicted, must serve their sentence.

Farmers Now Owe a Lot More for Health Insurance

By Sarah Boden and Drew Hawkins, Gulf States Newsroom • February 16, 2026

And now, the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that many Americans, including farmers, relied on to purchase health insurance are gone, having expired at the end of December.

It’s Not Your Grandfather’s Department of Justice

By John Christie • December 16, 2025

When I practiced law, much of my litigation involved issues arising under federal antitrust laws. The Department of Justice (DOJ) was my frequent adversary in court. In some cases, DOJ challenged a client’s conduct as anticompetitive. In others, they claimed an intended client merger would create a monopoly. Some of these DOJ court battles were won, others were not. Overall, I had great respect for DOJ lawyers. They were professional, well prepared, and dedicated to their mission of seeing justice done. They were courteous, honest, and forthright with the courts before which we argued our cases. In those days, without resorting to social media or press conferences, the DOJ spoke entirely through its court filings. Although as an advocate I took issue with various DOJ investigatory decisions as well as decisions to initiate litigation, I never thought politics was involved. Post-Watergate internal rules strictly limited communication with any figures at the White House. Not so, it seems, anymore. Beginning last January 20, all of this changed rapidly and spectacularly . On March 14, Trump triumphantly arrived at the main DOJ building in D.C. to be welcomed by a group of carefully selected VIPs. He was greeted by Pam Bondi, his chosen new attorney general, who exclaimed, “We are so proud to work at the directive (sic) of Donald Trump.” Bondi’s boast that the DOJ now worked at the president’s behest was something never said before and, in effect, surrendered the department’s long and proud independence. And Bondi’s comment was not an empty gesture. As chronicled by reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis in their new book, Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department , within hours of being sworn in, Trump and his lieutenants began punishing those at the Justice Department who had investigated him or those he considered his political enemies. Career attorneys with years of experience under many administrations were fired or reassigned to lesser work, or they resigned. As Leonnig and Davis report, what followed was “the wholesale overthrow of the Justice Department as Trump insert[ed] his dutiful former defense attorneys and 2020 election deniers atop the department.” [Source: Injustice , p. xix.] In the place of years of experience, the new team appears credentialed simply by loyalty to the president’s causes. The DOJ’s conduct in court has since caused damage to judicial and public faith in the integrity and competence of the department. Just Security is an independent, non-partisan, daily digital law and policy journal housed in the Reiss Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Since January 20, it has documented federal judicial concerns about DOJ conduct. In 26 cases, judges raised questions about DOJ non-compliance with judicial orders and in more than 60 cases, judges expressed distrust of government-provided information and representations. This count was taken the day after a federal court dismissed the DOJ cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. [Source: Just Security , “The ‘Presumption of Regularity’ in Trump Administration Litigation,” Nov. 20, 2025.] As summarized by the Georgetown Law Center’s Steve Vladeck, “It’s one thing for the Department of Justice to so transparently pursue a politically motivated prosecution. But this one has been beset from the get-go with errors that remotely competent law students wouldn’t make. Indeed, it seems a virtual certainty that the Keystone Kops-like behavior of the relevant government lawyers can be traced directly to the political pressure to bring this case; there’s a reason why no prosecutors with more experience, competence, or integrity were willing to take it on.” [Source: One First , Nov. 24, 2025.] Rather than accept criticism and instead of trying to do better, Bondi’s DOJ and the Trump administration lash out in a fashion apparently aimed at demeaning the federal judiciary. At a recent Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s former defense attorneys, attributed the Trump administration’s myriad losses in the lower federal courts to “rogue activist judges.” He added, “There’s a group of judges that are repeat players, and that’s obviously not by happenstance, that’s intentional, and it’s a war, man.” Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller decries each adverse ruling against the Trump administration as just part of a broader “judicial insurrection.” Not to be left behind, Trump himself regularly complains of “radical left lunatic” judges. In addition to the harm these comments inflict on the federal courts, their premise is simply not true. According to a survey by Vladeck, as of Nov. 14, there were 204 cases in which federal district courts have ruled on requests for preliminary relief against the Trump administration. In 154 of them, district judges granted either a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, or both. Those 154 rulings came from 121 district judges appointed by seven presidents (including President Trump) in 29 district courts. In the 154 cases with rulings adverse to the Trump administration, 41 were presided over by 30 Republican-appointed judges, fully half of whom were appointed by President Trump. No, it is no longer your grandfather’s Department of Justice. John Christie was for many years a senior partner in a large Washington, D.C. law firm. He specialized in anti-trust litigation and developed a keen interest in the U.S. Supreme Court about which he lectures and writes.

Salisbury City Council Appoints Melissa Holland to Fill District 2 Seat

By CSES Staff • December 16, 2025

The Salisbury City Council has appointed longtime public servant Melissa D. Holland to fill the vacancy in District 2. Holland was selected on Dec. 1 after the council reviewed several applicants. A 27-year resident of Salisbury, Holland brings more than 20 years of experience in government, education, and administration. As executive assistant to the president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, she currently oversees operations, budgeting, communications, and planning. Before joining UMCES, Holland worked for nearly 11 years with the Wicomico County Council, gaining extensive experience in legislative procedure, constituent services, research, and budget preparation. Her background includes positions with the Wicomico County Board of Education, the State of Maryland’s Holly Center, and multiple early-learning programs. Approved by a 3-1 council vote, Holland was selected based on her administrative expertise and long-standing community involvement. (Salisbury’s City Council is now comprised of only women.) She has a bachelor’s degree in legal studies from Post University and an associate degree from Wor-Wic Community College. She has also served as PTA president at East Salisbury Elementary and Wicomico Middle School. In her application, Holland emphasized her commitment to maintaining transparency in city government and ensuring that District 2 residents remain informed and represented. “I plan to be well-informed on the issues that matter to the citizens of Salisbury and to listen to their concerns carefully,” she wrote. “I want to make a positive and lasting impact on our city.” Holland’s appointment restores the City Council to full membership as it faces debates over budgeting, infrastructure planning, and local governance initiatives. She is expected to begin constituent outreach immediately and participate fully in the selection of the next council president.

Democrats Ambushed in Hurlock Election

By CSES Staff • November 4, 2025

Voters in Hurlock have delivered sweeping changes in this year’s municipal election, as Republican and GOP-aligned candidates won key races there. The results mark a setback for Democrats and a significant political shift in a community that has historically leaned Democratic in state and federal contests. The outcome underscores how local organizing and turnout strategies can have an outsized impact in small-town elections. Analysts also suggest that long-term party engagement in municipal contests could shape voter alignment in future county and state races. Political analysts warn that ignoring municipal elections and ceding them to the GOP could hurt the Maryland Democratic Party in statewide politics. Turnout increased by approximately 17% compared with the 2021 municipal election, reflecting heightened local interest in the mayoral and council races. Incumbent Mayor Charles Cephas, a Democrat, was soundly defeated by At-Large Councilmember Earl Murphy, who won with roughly 230 votes to Cephas’s 144. In the At-Large Council race, Jeff Smith, an independent candidate backed by local Republicans, secured a 15-point win over Cheyenne Chase. In District 2, Councilmember Bonnie Franz, a Republican, was re-elected by 40 percentage points over challenger Zia Ashraf, who previously served on the Dorchester Democratic Central Committee. The only Democrat to retain a seat on the council was David Higgins, who was unopposed. The Maryland Republican Party invested resources and campaign attention in the Hurlock race, highlighting it on statewide social media and dispatching party officials, including Maryland GOP Chair Nicole Beus Harris, to campaign. Local Democrats emphasized support for Mayor Cephas through the Dorchester County Democratic Central Committee, but the Maryland Democratic Party did not appear to participate directly.