Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous has chosen Susan W. Turnbull, a Democratic stalwart who has held local, state and national positions in the party, as his running mate in the crowded June 26 primary.
The former NAACP president is the first of the eight Democratic candidates to announce his pick for lieutenant governor. He said he selected Turnbull, a former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and former chair of the state Democratic Party, because the two share a commitment to bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to address the major problems facing the state, including health care, the opioid crisis and gun violence.
“Susan is a master coalition builder,” Jealous said. “Not long ago we were getting big things done in Maryland. And we can get back to doing big things again by building a coalition of Marylanders that goes across the lines of rural versus urban, black versus white and Christian versus Jewish.”
Neither Jealous, 44, nor Turnbull, 65, have held elected office. Turnbull, a longtime resident of heavily-Democratic Montgomery County, provides a geographical balance to Jealous, who has lived mostly in the Baltimore region and, as the former president of the NAACP, spent considerable time in Baltimore City.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Ovetta Wiggins over at the Washington Post