The Washington Examiner is following the key issues voters care about as they prepare to elect the next president of the United States. The specific issues being tracked are Social Security, crime, abortion, the economy, and immigration. As well as tracking swing states, the Washington Examiner has a guide for voters in the DMV area and the issues they most care about.

ELECTION 2024: HERE ARE THE ISSUES DC VOTERS CARE THE MOST ABOUT

The issues were chosen with the help of the Associated Press issues tracker. The Washington Examiner subsequently compared five of the key issues in Google Trends on a state-by-state basis, revealing which problems are most important to voters in swing contests.

Here, you can track how important these various concerns are to the voters in Maryland on a rolling 30-day basis. 

Social Security 

Social Security is trending as the No. 1 problem for voters. The state has a deep connection to the Social Security Administration. The headquarters are located in Baltimore, and Martin O’Malley, who was governor of the state from 2007 to 2015, was elevated to commissioner of the SSA by President Joe Biden in 2024. 

O’Malley directly addressed many problems people are facing with Social Security in an interview with WJZ. He was asked about wait times, disability benefits, and the administration’s longevity. 

O’Malley eased worries over Social Security’s ability to continue, calling the bankruptcy accusations “clickbait.” 

“We face a depletion event. It doesn’t mean that Social Security would go bankrupt. I know that a lot of the headlines, screens, and clickbait stuff that you see on social media says it’ll never be there for you. Heck, when I was in college, my friends and I used to tell each other, it won’t be there for us,” O’Malley said. “And now I’m two years away from being able to apply for Social Security. So it’s an elegantly simple program, in this respect, that so long as Americans are working and paying into Social Security, there will be a benefit.” 

The SSA’s staff shortage is causing long hold times on phone calls vital to people and their benefit questions. Over 30,000 people die every year while waiting to hear back from an SSA office on their initial disability determination. O’Malley only commented that the administration is hiring more employees to accommodate the requests.

Crime 

Crime was the No. 2 problem for Marylanders, with Baltimore found to be in the top five cities in America for violent crime rates in 2024, as well as one of the most dangerous cities in the world, despite its homicide rate in 2023 being the lowest it has been since 2014. 

The rate of violent victimizations in Maryland was 70% lower in 2022 than in 1993, and the state’s violent crime has decreased 16% since 2012. Yet in 2022, Maryland had the third highest violent crime rate in the Northeast and ranked 21st for violent crime throughout the nation. Homicide rates have increased 35% since 2012 but are on a downward trend since the spike in crime during 2020.

As of 2022, the Maryland cities with the highest homicide rates per 100,000 were Baltimore, with a rate of 50.3; Hagerstown, with 18.4; and Prince George’s County, with 11.2. More crimes are going unsolved now more than ever as 64% of crimes reported to the police in Maryland are never solved. 

Abortion

Abortion ranked third for voters in Maryland, but much like its neighbor Washington, D.C., the procedure is protected at all stages of pregnancy. The state does not require a waiting period or counseling session before accessing care, and while a minor does not need a parent’s permission to get the procedure, a parent or guardian does need to be aware that his or her child is getting an abortion. 

In April 2022, the state’s General Assembly passed the Abortion Care Access Act that provided $3.5 million for abortion care training, required most insurance plans to offer abortion coverage at no cost, protected patients and clinic staff, and made it illegal to obstruct clinic access. 

Maryland offers insightful statistics on how many procedures are given to out-of-state patients. The state saw a 40% uptick in abortions after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2023 due to a traveling patient influx. The highest numbers came from Virginia, with 1,300 patients; Pennsylvania, with 1,000 patients; West Virginia, with 820 patients; and North Carolina, with 310 patients. Other states such as Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana all had at least 100 patients traveling to Maryland seeking abortion care. 

Economy

Economy concerns came in fourth for Marylanders. As of November 2023, the state’s 1.8% unemployment rate was the lowest in the nation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis reported. Maryland’s gross domestic product growth rate increased from 1.6% to 2.7% between the second quarter of 2023 and the third quarter, resulting in a GDP of $518.7 billion in goods and services. 

The industries that saw the most economic growth are retail trade and construction, with GDP growth rates of 19% and 17%. Maryland accounts for 1.9% of the U.S. economy, ranking 17th in the nation. The most profitable industry in the state was the government, with $106.6 billion in GDP, followed by real estate, which saw $78.56 billion in 2023. 

Education services in the state fell 16%, and wholesale trade decreased 3.2%. 

Immigration 

Immigration came last as a voter concern, according to trends. Immigrants make up 16.6% of Maryland’s population and account for 21.1% of the state’s workforce, according to the American Immigration Council. The top nations of origin for Maryland immigrants are El Salvador, Nigeria, India, China, and Guatemala. 

With 82,800 entrepreneurs, 29.4% of Maryland’s business owners are immigrants, earning $2.8 billion in total business income. Immigrants held $38.6 billion in spending power and paid a total of $14.7 billion in taxes. 

Maryland immigrants have higher rates of higher education completion than the U.S.-born population, with 23.2% of immigrants having graduate degrees compared to 19.8% of natives. There are 22,743 international students in Maryland, contributing $929.4 million to the state’s economy. 

Of all the immigrants in the state, 53.8% are naturalized and 24.6% are illegal immigrants, with 134,900 eligible for naturalization. 

Maryland’s STEM workers are 24.7% immigrants, but the industries with the highest share of immigrant workers are construction, at 34.7%, and general services, at 26.9%. The healthcare industry also has high levels of immigrant workers, with 30.1% of nurses and 46.7% of health aids being foreign-born.