The Seventh Party System: Part XXXXIX
Map of the United States
Part I - Metropotamia
Part II - Alta California
Part III - North Carolina
Part IV - New Jersey
Part V - Adams
Part VI - Alabama
Part VII - Rhode Island
Part VIII - Sequoyah
Part IX - Assenisipia
Part X - East Florida
Part XI - Tennessee
Part XII - Kansas
Part XIII - Dakota
Part XIV - Arizona
Part XV - Delaware
Part XVI - Oregon
Part XVII - Ozark
Part XVIII - New Hampshire
Part XIX - Western Connecticut
Part XX - New York
Part XXI - Santo Domingo
Part XXII - South Carolina
Part XXIII - Baja California
Part XXIV - Chersonesus
Part XXV - Canal Zone Territory
Part XXVI - West Florida
Part XXVII - Missouri
Part XXVIII - Colorado
Part XXIX - Trinidad and Tobago
Part XXX - Pennsylvania
Part XXXI - Wisconsin
Part XXXII - Lincoln
Part XXXIII - Deseret
Part XXXIV - Platte
Part XXXV - Kiribati
Part XXXVI - New Mexico
Part XXXVII - Maine
Part XXXVIII - Alaska
Part XXXIX - Hamilton
Part XXXX - Mississippi
Part XXXXI - North Virginia
Part XXXXII - Bioko
Part XXXXIII - Hawaii
Part XXXXIV - Louisiana
Part XXXXV - Seward
Part XXXXVI - Illinoia
Part XXXXVII - Georgia
Part XXXXVIII - Columbia
Once upon a time a swing state between the Republicans and National Unionists, ever since the 1980s Maryland has been a reliable Labor stronghold, even while other states have faltered and declined since the 2016 elections.
This main reason for Labor's strength is the large commuter population which feeds into Washington D.C. Unlike the richer and more privileged counties of North Virginia, Maryland's commuter population is much more working class in composition, a significant chunk of which are African-Americans. In fact, African-Americans make up over 30% of the state's population, making Maryland the sixth most African-American state in the Union, as well as the only non formerly Confederate state to have a black population above 25%.
At the same time, however, Maryland is also home to America's second richest working class, right behind Alaska. This is of course due to the strong power of unions which have ensured high wages for all Marylanders. Maryland is also home to one of the nation's best healthcare systems, 100% free of any co-pays for everything from medical checkups to dental surgeries, though Alaskans still criticize the state for not covering mental health like they do.
Nevertheless, the success and prosperity of social democracy in Maryland has left a majority of the population content with Labor, at least until 2016. In the 2016 elections, Labor suffered large losses of its white workers to the Democratic party, so much so that the Democrats rose to second place with an astounding 41 seats while Labor was just shy of a majority at 91 seats. Some on the right saw this as an opportunity to throw out Labor and proposed a massive anti-Labor coalition, but with the Senate being heavily gerrymandered in favor of Labor this plan would not have allowed them full governmental control. In fact, even though Labor won only 43.5% of the popular vote in the Senate, they still won over a hundred seats, giving them a two-thirds majority. As such, Labor was destined to remain in power despite having holding only a minority in the House, operating via ad hoc supply deals with the Greens, Asian Action, and Hispanos Unidos.
However, in the 2018 elections Labor managed to take back their majority in the House, as well as upgrade their two-thirds Senate majority into a three-fourths one, enabling them to once again have total control over Maryland's political system. This makes Maryland the only state in which Labor holds a majority in the lower house, an interesting departure from the days of old when it was instead states like Metropotamia and Western Connecticut that served as the nexus of the Labor party.
Government:
Labor - The only governing party of Maryland ever since the 1980s, their base of voters of includes the often intersecting groups of African-Americans, government employees, and unionized workers. They also have a surprisingly high level of middle class professionals as members, due to the successes of their social programs. And with the Labor playing defense in most other states, the Maryland Labor party's ability to bounce back has shown the party elites that Labor still has plenty of fight left in it.
Opposition:
Republicans - Once upon a time the party that held the governorship, those days are nothing more than a distant memory with Republicans having been shut out of government ever since 1988. While the Maryland GOP at first saw the rise of the North Virginian GOP in the 2017 elections as a sign that Maryland might flip as well, those hopes appear to have been shatter with the Republicans actually losing a net of one seat, even as their vote share went up. As such, the dreams of Republicans being able to conquer all of the D.C. suburbia have seemed to have faded for the foreseeable future.
Democrats - The third of the big three in Maryland, they had rose to second place in 2016 election but fell spectacularly in this election, losing 14 seats in the House and 10 in the Senate. The Democratic party of Maryland is also unique for having the only black Democratic party leader in the country, Ben Carson. Carson was elected to head the party in 2015 by Democrats who hoped that a black party leader would enable them to gain some conservative black votes from Labor. And while the effects weren't as large as they might have hoped, the switch of black conservatives over to the Democratic party did nudge a few key seats into their hands. However, in the 2018 election, with everyone now knowing the full extent of Carson's "intellect" any black supporters the Democratic party might have had once again have returned to Labor, as while the Pact of Christ faction of the Democratic may not be racist, it is still far too religious and backwards.
Greens - A socially liberal, and economically center left party, they are most popular among the upper middle class yuppies that populate the D.C. metropolitan area. While constant campaigns advertisements have pushed their influence far below what it should be the party did play a critical role in supporting Labor's minority government from 2016 to 2018, allowing them to convince Labor to make Maryland join the fast growing list of states that have legalized same-sex marriage.
Black Panther Party - A party of black nationalists and socialists, they are not as popular as one might think given the demographics and largely urban population of Maryland. This is largely due to Labor worrying about another Black Panther surge similar to the one Metropotamia experienced, and thus they have put an end to the most controversial of their policing policies, such as stop-and-frisk. Nevertheless, the Black Panthers still gained two seats in the 2018 election, and continues to be rising in popularity among the poorest of African-Americans.
Asian Action - A party for centrist Asian-Americans, they are not as significant of a force as they are in North Virginia, forming less than 5% of the population in Maryland. Nevertheless, they are continuing to increase the vote share every year as more and more immigrants come from the East Asian Prosperity Sphere to settle in the US of A.
Hispanos Unidos - The party for centrist Hispanics across most of America, they are another small ethnic group in the black dominated state of Maryland. While not increasing quite as quickly as the Asian population is, they too are bolstered from continual immigration and that trend isn't likely to change anytime soon.
Constitution - The party for the Christian right of America, in a very urban state like Maryland their support is rather limited. However it is still existent, especially among the richest of social conservatives, who despise the fact that the Dewey faction controls the Maryland GOP, and who hope for a hard right conservative party to form the opposition instead of the milquetoast Republicans.
United Left - A catch-all party for socialists and communists of all stripes, the United Left of Maryland is just as strong the Constitution party, showing just how far left Maryland is. Yet to most leftists, this is still not good enough, as while the UL has around 5% of the vote share in Metropotamia and the Wobblies have more 7% of the vote share in Western Connecticut, in the newest Labor stronghold of Maryland they have less than 2% of the voters on their side.