AFRO News endorses Malcolm Ruff for Maryland Senate

By Megan Sayles

AFRO Staff Writer

Attorney and Maryland State Delegate Malcolm Ruff has emerged as the best candidate in District 41’s highly-contentious race for the Maryland Senate seat. Facing off against an incumbent who has been beleaguered by a recent indictment on charges of extortion and conspiracy, Ruff has remained focused on laying out his plan for a more equitable, economically thriving  District 41 through broader affordable housing investments, small business development initiatives and increased access to healthcare and workforce opportunities. 

Take a look below at some of Ruff’s responses to the 2026 AFRO Midterm Election Questionnaire:

TOPIC: Energy and environment

• Do you think it’s fair for residents to pay higher energy costs due to data centers in their neighborhood? How will you protect residents from experiencing rising energy costs due to the construction and operation of data centers in their residential area?

Ruff: No, Maryland family should see their energy bill go up so a data center can move in down the road. The companies that profit from this infrastructure should bear its costs, not the working families and seniors who live nearby. Maryland has started moving in the right direction: last year’s Next Generation Energy Act and this session’s Utility RELIEF Act are designed to protect ratepayers as data center energy demand climbs.

In the Senate, I will push for stronger actions. I will advocate for cost-allocation rules that place the burden on the developers who drive energy demand. Additionally, I will work to establish mechanisms that ensure communities have a real voice before any energy facilities are located in their area. Ordinary people should have access to electricity to keep their lights on and maintain comfortable temperatures in their homes, whether warm in the winter or cool in the summer. They shouldn’t have to subsidize corporate profits to do that. Clean, reliable, and affordable energy and corporate accountability can go hand in hand. I will always prioritize the needs of residents.

TOPIC: Leadership and collaboration

• How will you ensure you are accountable to all constituents in your district, including underrepresented communities?

Ruff: I’m a son of this city, raised on Baltimore’s west side. My family worships here, my kids are growing up here. This isn’t a district I discovered when I decided to run. And District 41 is big: it stretches across West Baltimore, from north central Baltimore down through the southwest, and it’s as diverse as the city itself. Representing it means showing upnfor all of it in every neighborhood, especially the communities used to being courted at election time and forgotten the day after.

 Accountability to me isn’t a slogan, it’s a practice. It means regular, visible presence: hosting town halls, office hours, being reachable when something goes wrong, and measuring myself by whether constituent problems actually get solved, not by how many ribbons I cut. It also means just showing up on the street, on the corner, and engaging people who have never been exposed to how their lives interface with the state government. I have the ability to do just because I have lived experience in every part of this district. The communities that have been overlooked the longest deserve a Senator who answers to them directly. I intend to be that Senator for everyone in District 41.

TOPIC: Housing and tenant protection

• What additional measures should the State Senate consider to expand affordable housing for low and middle-income families?

As a state delegate for the 41st District, I championed extending the Live Near YourSchool program so educators can afford to live in the communities where they teach. I sponsored alterations to the Catalytic Revitalization Tax Credit to prioritize workforce housing. And I established a state task force on deed fraud, which is a wealth-stripping scam that has emptied homes across West Baltimore for decades. We need more housing supply, we need protections against displacement, and we need to stop letting predators take what families built.

TOPIC: Democracy and elections

•   How should Maryland regulate social media platforms and AI technologies to protect election integrity while preserving free speech?
• What reforms do you think are necessary to increase transparency and accountability in campaign finance at the state level?

Voters deserve to know exactly who is funding the people who represent them. Trust in government starts with transparency, and right now, too much money moves through our politics, hidden behind the scenes. I support stronger, faster public disclosure of who is giving and who is spending, in order to close the loopholes that let donors hide behind LLCs and shell entities. Critically, we also need to make sure the State Board of Elections has the resources to actually enforce the rules already on the books.

Accountability doesn’t work very well when it depends on whether someone gets caught or not. It needs to be built into the system. Voters should know exactly who is funding candidates, so they can make fully informed decisions. That’s how we rebuild faith in our democracy.

AFRO Intern Morgan Carpenter contributed to this report. 

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