[citation needed] Glendening's career in public service began in 1973 as a city councilman in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Hyattsville, Maryland.

He and his top aides stood to benefit from a controversial Prince George's county supplemental retirement plan that was not widely disclosed by the press until after he was elected governor in an extremely close contest.

Sauerbrey challenged the result in Maryland circuit court claiming that widespread voting by dead people occurred in the African American community.

[citation needed] Glendening's early administration was marked by higher education investment, environmental protection, tax reform and economic development.

As of June 2014, Maryland was home to the second-largest biotech cluster per capita in the U.S.[13] Glendening also assisted in successfully bringing the National Football League teams Washington Redskins from Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in the neighboring District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) who now play in a new stadium in Landover, with then owner Jack Kent Cooke, and the relocated franchise Baltimore Ravens, from Cleveland, Ohio, as the former Cleveland Browns with owner Art Modell to play in Baltimore after two years in a new stadium as part of the sports complex at Camden Yards, west of the redeveloped Inner Harbor.

In 2001, Maryland legislators passed a bill that Glendening had promoted for the previous two years banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

[20] The ban was re-instituted by Ehrlich's successor, former Baltimore mayor, Martin O'Malley, who eventually signed a bill in 2013 ending Maryland's use of capital punishment.

Townsend was damaged during the election due to wide criticism by rural voters, especially farmers, directed at Glendening for what they considered overzealous environmental legislation aimed at preventing rain runoff of pollutants from farm soils into tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, that significantly raised the cost of participating in agribusiness.

Ehrlich ran an inclusive campaign focusing on his bipartisan work in Congress and his pro-choice stance on abortion and moderate voting record.

At the same time, Townsend's campaign was plagued with missteps emblematic of which was her unpopular lieutenant governor choice, retired admiral Charles R. Larson, who had never been involved in politics and had changed parties only weeks before.

Mfume eventually lost the Democratic primary to Representative Ben Cardin, who went on to win the Senate seat replacing longtime incumbent Paul Sarbanes.