Will Jawando, son of a Nigerian father, is elected to run one of Maryland's biggest counties
Two early defeats did not stop the former Obama aide. He took about 78% to become Montgomery County's executive.
Rockville — Will Jawando, the son of a Nigerian father and an American mother, has been elected county executive of Montgomery County, Maryland.
Reported counts gave the 43-year-old Democrat 242,676 votes, or about 78%, to 67,640, or about 22%, for the Republican Esther Wells. He succeeds Marc Elrich, who is term-limited.
Early losses
Jawando was born in Montgomery County. His father is Olayinka Jawando. He studied at Catholic University of America, interned for Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Sherrod Brown, and worked in the US Department of Education and the White House Office of Public Engagement under President Obama.
His first campaigns failed. He lost a primary for the Maryland House of Delegates in 2014, and another in 2016 for Congress, to Jamie Raskin. In 2018 he won an at-large seat on the county council, and was re-elected in 2022. He entered the 2024 US Senate race, then withdrew and endorsed Angela Alsobrooks.
He is also the author of a 2022 memoir, My Seven Black Fathers.
The decisive primary
The real contest was in June. In the heavily Democratic county, Jawando beat Andrew Friedson and three others with 40.15% of the vote, 52,738 of 131,363 ballots.
He campaigned on school funding, affordable housing and the cost of living. "We need to make housing more affordable and that means building more near transit," he told WTOP after the primary. He has said he will be sworn in on 1 December.
Source: Blueprint, Legit.ng, WTOP, WTOP, Wikipedia, November 2026.
