The competitive primary election races in Maryland have taken an ugly turn for some candidates running for various offices whose campaign signs have been vandalized or stolen.
LaTasha Ward, a District 24 candidate for the House of Delegates, has had her head disappear from some of her campaign signs.
“If somebody’s cutting your face off, that means they want to erase you,” she said. “Regardless, they can’t erase me. I'm not going to be erased.”
Then there were the reports of her yard signs disappearing.
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“When you have a sign in someone’s yard, it means that person supports you,” Ward said. “That could be four or five people in that household supporting you. So people want to take your visibility away.”
Then a Ring video surfaced of someone stealing one of Ward’s yard signs from a supporter’s home. While the person is barely recognizable, Christopher Stevenson, who's also running in District 24, said it was one of his campaign volunteers taking the sign. He issued an apology on Facebook.
“I was informed that one of my volunteers took some of the signs of one of our opponents and I told my volunteer immediately that they need to put them back,” he said. “I do not condone that; I do not condone that type of behavior.
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Stevenson said he's had some signs disappear, too, as have other candidates.
“Everything you see on the sign costs money,” Ward said.
“The apology really wasn't a good apology,” she said. “If anything, you could pay, give a donation, give the money, because it wasn't just the two signs. It’s been many signs. I just haven't talked about it.”
She said thousands of dollars were lost with just two months left before the primary.
There are eight candidates running for the 24th District's three open seats, including two incumbents.
