Donna Edwards, locked in a tight Democratic congressional primary race with incumbent Rep. Al Wynn, D-Md., met with former NAACP President and five-term Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume on Thursday.
But she was not able, as her staff at first indicated, to announce his endorsement.
Edwards said her meeting with Mfume at Woodside Retirement Community in Fort Washington was not intended to be anything more than a chance for the two to catch up. She attributed the initial report to the media that said Mfume would endorse her as “just a little mistake” by a junior campaign staffer but said she was hopeful Mfume would endorse her in the future.
“We’re always keeping our fingers crossed,” Edwards said, adding she planned a public rally on Jan. 24 where some endorsements would beannounced.
Both Wynn and Edwards backed Mfume during a failed primary bid for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Sen. Ben Cardin. Edwards, however, told The Examiner she was one of Mfume’s earliest supporters. Wynn, on the other hand, publicly announced his support for Mfume two weeks before the primary.
Wynn campaign manager Lori Sherwood said she did not know whether Wynn, who at one time served alongside Mfume in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Congressional Black Caucus, had anything to do with the change in endorsement plans.
Sherwood said via e-mail that Wynn had already been endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America and major local labor groups. On Thursday, the campaign touted the support of Planned Parenthood.
Edwards said she had the backing of many feminist organizations, including Emily’s List, the Fund for the Feminist Majority and the National Organization for Women, and was not upset or surprised that Planned Parenthood and NARAL were backing Wynn.
“They have a pretty standard process that basically requires them to endorse incumbents,” Edwards said.
Edwards came within 3,000 votes of beating Wynn during the 2006 Democratic primary, and local labor unions, like abortion rights feminist groups, have also split their support between the candidates.
“This is not a race between different factions of the Democratic Party, but rather between factions of factions of the Democratic Party,” said David Wasserman, U.S. House editor for the nonpartisan political analysis team that produces the Cook Report.
