Even as Tom Hucker (D-5) was abandoning his quixotic county executive bid, Del. Al Carr (D-18) jumped from a safe, unopposed re-election to one of the three delegate seats in his district to the District 4 Council race.

He joins Takoma Park Mayor Kate Stewart and Friends of White Flint Executive Director Amy Ginsburg among others in that contest for this seat extending from White Flint through Kensington to Takoma Park. Carr is a former Kensington Town Councilmember.

Does this mean District 18 will have a Republican delegate? One Republican did file. However, party central committees can fill vacant nominations. Unhappily, this means that the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee will choose D18’s next delegate.

The big winners from this are Dels. Jared Solomon and Emily Shetty, who will not face a contested primary. The big losers are other potential candidates and the voters. Instead of an open contest with many candidates who would likely try to fill a vacancy, D18 voters will see MCDCC members from all over the county choose their next delegate.

Among others, Max Socol, Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher’s challenger could seek the seat. I doubt that will happen for several reasons. While Sen. Waldstreicher would likely love to dispense with a tough challenger, he’s hardly likely to set him up to dog him in the General Assembly for four years and would oppose it from behind the scenes. Socol also seems very focused on unseating Waldstreicher, though an easy seat in the House of Delegates is appealing.

Finally, the extremely identity conscious MCDCC is likely to think hard before replacing an African American delegate with a white male. Natali Fani-Gonzalez, who served on the Planning Board and ran a respectable race for delegate four years ago would be a strong candidate. But she seems all in on her own race for County Council in District 6.