Former NAACP president to run for Cummings’s House seat

Former congressman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume will run for the Maryland House seat left vacant after the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), according to ABC News.

{mosads}Mfume previously held the seat for five terms before retiring to assume the NAACP presidency, with Cummings succeeding him and serving until his death in October.

Mfume ran in the state’s Democratic primary for the Senate in 2006 but lost to Sen. Ben Cardin.

“His memory and spirit to fight back and fight on is alive and well and here with us today,” Mfume said of Cummings in his announcement Tuesday.

“I need you with me. I need you with me because like you, like you, all of us believe in the American right to clean water, to clean air, to a good education for children no matter where their zip code or what their surname is… I ask all of you to join me in this fight.”

Mfume is not the first person to declare his candidacy for the heavily Democratic seat. Maryland House of Delegates Majority Whip Talmadge Branch (D) announced his candidacy last week, after Dr. Mark Gosnell had already declared.

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the late House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman’s widow and the chairwoman of the Maryland Democratic Party, has not yet committed to a run but said she is “thinking carefully” about the prospect.

The primary for the seat is scheduled for Feb. 4, 2020, while Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has scheduled the general special election to fill the seat for April 28, coinciding with the state’s presidential primary.