By Political Party Animals & Maryland Bay News
In a stunning and historic announcement that shocked absolutely no one, Montgomery County has officially kicked off its 2026 campaign season—not with ideas, not with results, but with identity declarations so nuanced they require ancestry.com subscriptions and a decoder ring to fully understand.
That’s right, the 2026 Montgomery County Council race is shaping up to be the most intersectionally fabulous pageant of firsts in Maryland history. And don’t you dare suggest otherwise, or you’ll be escorted out of Rockville by the local equity compliance squad.
Here’s a preview of some of the groundbreaking candidates expected to run, each more historically unprecedented than the last:
🥇 María-Jamal Patel-Stein (they/she/he/lavender)
“I’m the first gender-fluid Indo-Puerto-African-American neurodivergent pickleball enthusiast to run for District 3.”
Their campaign platform includes abolishing all traffic signs (because colonialism), renaming Rockville “Stone-People-Ville,” and replacing school grades with mood-based emojis.
🥈 Carlos Jesus O’Malley-Ba (he/him/Irish-Gambian)
“I’ll be the first Black Irish Muslim with two Catholic grandmothers to ever run as a vegan socialist in MoCo.”
Carlos promises to introduce legislation making oat milk the official beverage of Montgomery County and replace all county vehicles with tandem bikes.
🥉 Luna Xi Nguyen-Goldberg (she/them, sometimes foxkin)
“I’m the first Vietnamese-Jewish-American daughter of a kombucha sommelier to run for office while actively channeling the spirit of my grandmother’s goat.”
Her platform includes mandating lunar calendars in all public buildings and expanding access to astrology-based zoning permits.
🎖️ Ezekiel “Zeke” Johnson-Butler (he/him, but prefers “Z”)
“I’m the first cisgender straight male on this list… but I promise I hate myself enough to make up for it.”
Running on a platform of “checking my privilege in every committee meeting,” Zeke is endorsed by three nonprofits, two food co-ops, and one emotionally intelligent bonsai tree.
🏅 Sage Moonlight-Sanchez (pronouns: poem/verse)
“As a 2-spirit Appalachian-Boricua spoken word artist and Reiki-certified transit expert, I will be the first candidate to communicate entirely in interpretive dance.”
If elected, all budget meetings will be conducted barefoot, on bean bags, with sage smudging between agenda items.
Policy? Performance.
While the rest of Maryland wonders about rising taxes, declining schools, and traffic congestion that rivals Dante’s Inferno, Montgomery County continues its sacred tradition of confusing governance with a live-action LinkedIn diversity showcase.
“I don’t need to fix potholes,” said one candidate proudly. “I am a pothole. I identify as one. And that makes me qualified to heal the community’s trauma from asphalt oppression.”
Future Firsts We Can’t Wait For
- First left-handed beekeeper from Belarus
- First person to campaign using only haiku
- First AI-generated candidate with no carbon footprint or voting record
- First silent mime councilmember (endorsed by Greenpeace and your ex)
Conclusion: The Identity Eclipse Is Nigh
If you thought 2022 was wild, buckle up. By 2026, the MoCo Council will look less like a governing body and more like a progressive Pokémon deck, where every card claims to be the “first” at something vaguely relevant.
Meanwhile, basic services are collapsing, teachers are quitting, and residents are moving to Frederick for the thrill of functional government.
But hey—at least we’ll be the first county in America to have a councilmember who’s a left-handed, pansexual, triathlete-slam-poet descended from Vikings and Venezuelans.
And isn’t that what democracy is all about?
Political Party Animals 