Baltimore mayoral hopeful Thiru Vignarajah endorsed Sheila Dixon, but will voters follow? Not necessarily, observers say
On the campaign trail, mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah was fond of telling city voters they shouldn’t have to choose between the “incompetence” of Mayor Brandon Scott and “corruption” in former Mayor Sheila Dixon.
The mantra was the centerpiece of his television ads, a part of his campaign kickoff remarks and repeated at debates and forums.
On Wednesday, Vignarajah chose corruption.
With less than 24 hours remaining before the start of early voting, the former prosecutor halted his campaign and threw his support behind Dixon, whom he had been assailing for months for her 2010 resignation amid an embezzlement conviction.
The question now as the city enters the final week before the primary is where Vignarajah’s supporters will go — and if they’ll follow his lead in embracing Dixon. On its face, a recent poll for The Baltimore Sun suggests Vignarajah’s supporters may be inclined to support the former mayor. Of those polled, 48% reported that Dixon was their second choice behind Vignarajah.
In reality, some observers say, the transition might not be as seamless as the Dixon team hopes.
“He just seemed a little smarter than the average bear,” Vignarajah supporter Joseph Ebbitt said.
Ebbitt, 68, who lives in Baltimore’s Lakeland neighborhood, was among the likely Vignarajah voters polled by The Sun, University of Baltimore and FOX45 in April who named Dixon as his second choice. Ebbitt said he’s been meaning to cast his mail-in ballot for weeks, and has now decided to go with Scott.
Ebbitt said he was “still in awe” of what he saw as Scott’s shortfalls, including a snafu involving $10 million in federal funds for housing because of an administrative mishap — but having Dixon in office would be “too embarrassing” considering the gift card scandal that forced her from office, he said. Vignarajah, he was hoping, would have been a better option.
Vignarajah’s exit sets up a scenario typically unseen in Baltimore’s crowded campaigns: a near head-to-head matchup. Scott, the city’s mayor of four years, and Dixon, who held the position for three, will now duke it out for the remainder of early voting, which ends May 9, and on primary day, held May 14.
The Scott-Dixon fight is far from a clean one-on-one matchup. Vignarajah’s late exit from the race came months too late to remove his name from the ballot, and the more than 17,000 voters who cast mail-in ballots ahead of his Wednesday announcement didn’t know he would withdraw. Challenger Bob Wallace also remains in the race, although polling indicates he has little support.
Vignarajah won’t be able to simply deliver his entire base to Dixon, said Steve Raabe, president of OpinionWorks, the Annapolis-based firm that conducted the poll. Some voters, about 19%, said they favored Scott as their second choice. And Vignarajah’s name will remain on the ballot, making it likely some votes will be cast for him.
The poll also found Vignarajah voters were flexible, Raabe said. Just 41% said their vote for Vignarajah was firm, while 58% said their selection could change.
“When he gets out there and endorses another candidate, voters that are not firmly with him anyway are not necessarily going to listen to who he endorses,” Raabe said.
Complicating the choice for voters are lingering questions about the potential conditions of Vignarajah’s endorsement. Scott has suggested Dixon bought Vignarajah’s support based upon his own conversations with the candidate.
The mayor said he met with Vignarajah on Wednesday morning, just hours before the Dixon endorsement was announced. Vignarajah had asked him to consider making him CEO of city schools or police commissioner in exchange for an endorsement, Scott said — a suggestion Scott said he rejected.
Vignarajah has maintained that he did not strike a deal with Dixon in exchange for granting his support, although he acknowledged making the offer to be “helpful” to the Dixon administration. Asked whether he had discussed any specific jobs he may be interested in with Dixon or other candidates, Vignarajah said Wednesday it was not “productive to talk about that level of specifics.”
Dixon issued a statement saying no promises were made regarding future employment with her administration. And she didn’t answer questions Thursday about what Vignarajah may have asked for in exchange for dropping out of the race.
Kaye Whitehead, a WEAA radio host and associate professor at Loyola University, said she’s heard from Vignarajah’s supporters who are confused and asking questions about what ended up being a messy exit.
The messaging around the meetings with both candidates was far from “clean,” and even “a tad bit uncomfortable,” she said. Even if there wasn’t a deal, Vignarajah’s acknowledgement that he met with Scott before endorsing Dixon raises questions about why he was meeting with both candidates and if he is really fully supportive of Dixon.
“It’s less about his support of Sheila. It’s about what did Sheila promise him?” Whitehead said.
For voters who have not yet cast their ballots, allegiances are shifting.
Suzanne O’Grady, 60, said she would reluctantly vote for Scott after being excited to vote for Vignarajah. A yoga teacher who lives across the street from the Inner Harbor, O’Grady said she’d been on the fence until an incident in mid-April in which she said she and her husband were walking along the harbor and a group of juveniles started pushing her husband and then slapped the back of his head. O’Grady said they did not immediately contact police but an officer told her later to contact the mayor’s office, which she did and then never got a full response. O’Grady said she wants Scott to take the issue of youth crime more seriously.
Vignarajah was “a breath of fresh air” in that respect, she said, though she said there’s no way she’ll vote for Dixon.
“She should be forgiven and should be able to move on and whatever, but not again as mayor,” O’Grady said. “I have a real problem with that.”
Still, other Vignarajah voters eagerly embraced Dixon, including supporters who showed up to his joint news conference with Dixon on Wednesday.
Sandra Seward said Vignarajah and Dixon’s platforms have converged during recent campaign events. They’ve found common ground on their opposition to the proposed Harborplace redevelopment and in support of community schools, he said.
“I think it’s very wise for them to work together as much as they can,” she said.
Raabe said the poll suggests Dixon and Vignarajah voters have different motivations, however. Of Dixon’s likely supporters, 44% said violence and crime were their chief concerns. Vignarajah voters mentioned crime, but were more focused on leadership qualities and community improvement, Raabe said.
“It’s a little bit of a different type of voter,” he said. “I don’t know whether they go to Scott, but they don’t automatically go to Dixon.”
John Willis, Maryland’s former secretary of state under Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening, said it will be hard for Vignarajah to undo his repeated public statements and ads about Dixon being the choice representing corruption. Campaign finance records show he spent much of the more than $600,000 in public funds he earned before dropping out of the race.
Even beyond the irony of those claims, Willis said, it’s an overstatement to say Vignarajah’s supporters will simply follow him to Dixon’s camp because of his endorsement. They may break away to each camp in equal measures or perhaps 60-40 in favor of Dixon, but in no scenario will all of them move toward Dixon — and likely not enough to overcome the roughly 3,000-vote margin Scott won by in 2020 and that he’s likely grown since then with the advantage of being the incumbent, he said.
If anything, Willis said, Vignrajah’s decision could depress turnout if his supporters really don’t want to vote for another candidate.
“Politicians sometimes have this illusion that they’re commanding an army and whoever’s supporting them will go where they go, and that’s not true,” Willis said. “Voters are not fungible.”