Maryland Leaders Vow to Use New Democratic Congressional Majority to Reverse Trump-Era Cuts

A Democratic Sweep in Congress Opens Door for Maryland to Undo Trump Damage

After a dramatic Democratic sweep of the U.S. Maryland leaders met in the House and Senate on Tuesday to plan how to use their party’s new federal power to increase the state’s national influence. The Banner reported that with control of Congress, state officials are now poised to tackle the deep wounds inflicted during the second term of Republican President Donald Trump.

The stakes for Maryland are immense. Maryland saw the disappearance of approximately 30,000 federal jobs, and the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency headquartered in Bethesda, has experienced funding losses amounting to billions of dollars. Leading research centers such as The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have been eliminating positions following severe reductions in federal grants, a severe setback for a state whose economy is closely linked to the federal government.

Leading the Charge: Raskin and Van Hollen Take Key Roles

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin is poised to become chair of the influential House Judiciary Committee, while Sen. Chris Van Hollen, influential inside and outside the Senate, has sought to shape party strategy. This new leadership positions Maryland to play a central role in reversing course.

The immediate goal, according to Raskin, is to stanch the bleeding on day one of the new Congress, which gets sworn in Jan. 3. “We would also, I hope on Day 1, restore SNAP benefits,” he said, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “We want to restore all the Medicaid cuts and the cuts against the Affordable Care Act credits.”

Democratic sweep reshapes politics across D.C., Maryland and Virginia

Congress, soon to be Democratic-led, controls the federal budget, giving Raskin and his colleagues significant power to enact their agenda. The potential impact on Maryland residents is direct and profound. Approximately 36,000 Marylanders were deprived of their SNAP benefits following Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which reduced funding for the federal social safety net program, based on data from this summer.

People are really going to start feeling the impacts of these cuts. None of us are interested in going back and protecting the status quo. This is a new day, with new approaches, new solutions and a new urgency that Democrats must take on immediately.

— Angela Alsobrooks

The message from voters was clear, according to Maryland’s freshman senator. While campaigning for Democrats in other states, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks said voters frequently complained about the rising cost of healthcare. “People are really going to start feeling the impacts of these cuts,” she said. “None of us are interested in going back and protecting the status quo,” Alsobrooks said. “This is a new day, with new approaches, new solutions and a new urgency that Democrats must take on immediately.”

Democratic Infighting and Trump Administration Constraints Hinder Agenda

The Democratic party is prone to infighting between its centrists and progressive wings, a dynamic that could make developing a unified agenda challenging. And critically, there are still two more years of the Trump administration. While Democrats control Congress, they do not control the federal agencies themselves, limiting their ability to automatically reverse all cuts to the federal workforce.

The Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in funding from the National Institutes of Health and led top research institutions like The Johns Hopkins University to shed jobs after federal grant cuts. Through the “power of the purse,” Van Hollen said, Democrats can deny the White House money to “hack away” at the federal workforce. He added that the administration had replaced merit-based positions in the federal government with “political hacks and cronies”—something he said Democrats will work to reverse. “Then we do need to begin the process of reforming and rebuilding, which will of course take a little longer,” he noted.

The fallout for one of Maryland’s largest employers has been considerable, with Hopkins eliminating over 2,000 positions in 2025 and more than 100 in 2026. The University of Maryland, Baltimore, has also suffered. Last year, public university president Bruce Jarrell announced layoffs, vacancy cuts and salary reductions for approximately 1,000 employees as the university faced a “clear and present danger” from cuts to federal research funding.

Georges Benjamin, the CEO of the American Public Health Association and former Maryland health secretary, pointed out that a Democratic majority in Congress is much more likely to pass budgets that make “proper investments in innovation and science.” The Trump administration, he said, created an environment of uncertainty by delaying funding and breaking grant contracts.

When you have these funding disruptions, it totally undermines people’s careers. A Democratic Congress will allow major academic centers in Maryland to hold onto faculty who might have been planning on leaving the country and will allow them to build a pipeline of young, energetic, smart scientists to do the work.

— Georges Benjamin, CEO of the American Public Health Association

Benjamin also predicted that Democrats will stabilize the NIH, a crucial step for Maryland’s scientific community. “The Trump administration is attacking science, they’re attacking innovation, and yes, that hurts these important Maryland institutions, but it also hurts our country,” Van Hollen said, echoing the broader sentiment.

Maryland Democrats Aim to Protect Infrastructure and Federal Funding

Steuart Pittman, chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, said the state delegation is strong and that Gov. Wes Moore’s relationship with lawmakers will benefit the state. His priorities include securing approval for the FBI headquarters relocation to Greenbelt and safeguarding federal funding for the Key Bridge rebuild.

“I’m confident that our governor and our delegation will fight for it,” Pittman said.

The question now is whether Democrats can deliver on their ambitious agenda in a divided government. They have the power of the purse, but they cannot legislate by themselves.

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