King Beats Ali in Contested State Senate Race

A bitterly contested race for the Democratic nomination for State Senate in District 39 came to an end Tuesday with incumbent Nancy King beating out opponent Saqib Ali.

With all District 39 precincts reported -- which includes parts of North Potomac, Gaithersburg, and Montgomery Village -- and early votes counted, King won 52 percent of the votes with 3514, Ali won 3287.

Turnout was low at polling stations around the district.  At 6:30 p.m., a little more than 10 percent of the registered voters at the Travilah Elementary School precinct had voted.  Dufief Elementary School saw 23 percent of its registered voters by 7:30p.m.

Ali, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates in his first term in office, visited Dufief Elementary School with his wife at 8a.m. Tuesday morning.  He said he had plans to try to stop by all 28 polling stations in District 39.

Ali is a software engineer and lives with his wife and two daughters in Gaithersburg.  He got his start in national politics working for Howard Dean in the 2004 presidential election as the coordinator for District 39.  In 2006 he volunteered full time for Congressman Chris Van Holen.

Nancy King served as president of the Montgomery County School Board and was elected to the House of Delegates in 2006.  She was appointed to the State Senate in 2007.

The campaign was filled with vicious attacks in mailings from both camps and online.  Ali tried to cast King, a former Republican, as not as progressive as he is and challenged her on several social issues including gay marriage in a recent debate. Alternatively, King created a website of Ali's facebook posts and sent a mailer with a picture of him sleeping on a couch.  In one of the most recent mailers it appears as though Ali's skin was intentionally darkened. 

King will go up against Robert Smith in the general election in November. 

Smith did not have a primary race but still spent Tuesday talking to voters at the polls.  Before results came in on Tuesday, Smith said he is prepared to take on the winner of the campaign.

"I've been involved in county politics for the 25 years and I've never seen a race so nasty between two people," said Smith.  "That's not what we need, we need to stop the circular firing squad.  We have the better message to take on the budget and what's going on in Annapolis right now."