Followed home, frozen out the party and driven abroad: How one state’s politics went way too far

When Andrew Messick first noticed the white Mercedes, it had been following him for a while down a multi-lane highway through the suburbs. The car stood out because of its one working headlight; he recognized it from outside the political event he had left a few minutes before. Now, it tailed him closely as he made his way home.

A grad student and a recent veteran, Messick describes how his military training kicked in as the car got uncomfortably close behind him at one point, almost like a police officer just before pulling someone over.

“Every time I would change lanes, he would change lanes,” he says.

The car, with its one shining front light, would follow Messick to a parking lot a short distance away from his actual residence. There, he says, it came to a halt — right behind him. In his rearview mirror, much to Messick’s surprise, his follower came into view.

“I pulled off and parked and I sat there. And he pulled in right behind me and stared right at my car,” he recalled. What he saw, he says, was unmistakable. If it’s true, then Democratic politics in Maryland are some of the weirdest and most unconventional in the country.

Over more than two months in 2023, The Independent spoke to more than two dozen individuals engaged in Democratic politics in the state, largely concentrated in Montgomery County — the wealthiest county in the state. Many were involved in the 2018 race to represent the state’s 6th congressional district, and described the primary for that seat as an all-out brawl where party insiders traded favors while treating their opponents with such toxicity that many were frozen out entirely.

What we found was often downright bizarre. Indeed, while I investigated some of the claims made during my