BALTIMORE — As self-described “Democratic socialist” candidates are seeing greater success in races around the country, one Maryland lawmaker who embraces the label believes Democratic Party voters are shifting in his direction.
Del. Gabe Acevero, a 34-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, represents Montgomery County in the Maryland General Assembly. He was first elected in 2018 — long before Zohran Mamdani and Omar Fateh gained national attention for winning the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City and an endorsement from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minneapolis’ mayoral race, respectively.
As the electorate becomes younger and more progressive, Acevero said that establishment Democrats should “be cognizant” of what that constituency wants if it plans to win elections.
“If you look at where our base, where our constituency and where America is trending, we have to focus on working-class issues — from housing to socioeconomic, gender, environmental, justice — and we can’t just continue to provide lip service as a party,” he said. “We have to fight like hell, not just for the policies, but for workers and the working class. And that’s what I’ve been committed to in the legislature and will continue to do so.”
Del. Matt Morgan, a Republican from St. Mary’s County, said he knows Acevero well and considers him “a nice guy.” He said it’s “undeniable” that the Democratic Party is shifting in Acevero’s direction. And, in fact, “it’s already there,” Morgan said.
He thinks the push into socialism is ultimately a losing proposition for Maryland voters.
“Socialism has a 100% failure rate. The more it’s implemented in Maryland, the more people are going to leave,” Morgan said.
Recent elections in New York and Minnesota are perhaps indications that the word “socialism” does not carry the same negative connotation among voters today — especially among Generation Z and younger millennials born after the Cold War, according to Flavio Hickel, an associate professor of political science at Washington College. These voters, and others who increasingly identify as “working class,” believe Democrats “need to offer a more ambitious, aggressive, and left-leaning” policy vision, Hickel told The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday.
“I don’t think mainstream Democrats would regard what [Acevero] said as probably all that offensive or problematic,” Hickel said. “They just might differ in sort of, the tactics — how far, how quick and how aggressively do we pursue progressive change?”
A staff member for the Maryland Democratic Party did not immediately respond to The Sun’s request for comment on Acevero’s claims that Democrats are moving in his direction.
What a Democratic socialist wants in Maryland
Acevero’s campaign platform has often leaned progressive: police and criminal justice reform, a $15-per-hour minimum wage, single-payer Medicare For All, universal basic income, higher taxes for the wealthy, and support for kids aging out of the foster care system.
“I think, at the time, a lot of people were trying to, essentially, discourage Democratic voters in District 39 from voting for me, because [they thought], ‘these are like radical socialist policies,’” said Acevero. “In actuality, what they are are popular policies that working people in our state want to see enacted, and so we ran a — similar to Zohran [Mamdani] — a people-powered campaign.”
Like Mamdani, Acevero has been vocal in his support of Palestinians in the Gaza war against Israel during his time in the state legislature.
In 2025, he introduced the Not On Our Dime Act, which would have required the Maryland Secretary of State to remove nonprofit organizations from the state’s Registry of Charitable Solicitation if they knowingly engage in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity. That bill was heard in the House Judiciary Committee, but not debated on the floor.
Acevero also sponsored a joint resolution in 2024 that would have conveyed to Maryland’s congressional delegation that the General Assembly supports a long-term ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. The joint resolution was heard in the Rules and Executive Nominations Committee, but did not advance further.
‘I’ve been very unapologetic’
Acevero told The Sun that Democrats “weren’t particularly fond of” him because, prior to his election in 2018, he was an activist with a penchant for holding politicians in both parties accountable.
“I wasn’t the darling of the establishment, and I certainly wasn’t embraced by the establishment Democrats in District 39,” he said. “I unseated a two-term incumbent, and I ran on a working-class, progressive agenda that some folks tried to weaponize … using the whole ‘Red Scare Socialism’ scare tactic.”
Acevero alleges establishment figures later hand-picked a candidate to beat him in the 2022 primary, calling his policies “pie in the sky” or “radical.” Still, he won.
Though he’s rounding out his second term, Acevero still isn’t necessarily “embraced” by other Democrats in the General Assembly. Often when he participates in floor debates, he is jeered and his comments — occasionally incendiary — are often called into question.
In 2021, he offered amendments to a package of major police reform bills because he felt the settled policy didn’t go far enough. Acevero voted against the Democratic redistricting plan later that year because he says he doesn’t believe in gerrymandering. He’s publicly critical of criminal justice bills that establish mandatory minimum sentences, of which he said: “Time and again, civil rights organizations have pointed out … it ties judges’ hands, but it also disproportionately impacts, you know, Black and Latino people.”
“I’ve been very unapologetic about the policies that I advocate for and who I am, because I think it’s important,” he said, adding that efforts to “delegitimize Democratic Socialists and their policies [have] never worked.”
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