Democrat County Council members Tom Hucker, Craig Rice, Nancy Navarro and Sidney Katz won their party’s support again and will be joined by Andrew Friedson on the Democratic ticket in November to represent their districts.

Also victorious was Friedson, who has never held elected office, and beat out seven other candidates in District 1, including State Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez and former Kensington Mayor Peter Fosselman.

Friedson credited his win to hardworking volunteers who knocked on every door in the District while also knowing how best to use social media.

“It was a tough race,” he said.

Throughout his campaign, Friedson stressed the slogan, “Beat the Squeeze,” referring to how families were having trouble affording to live in the County, which was struggling to keep up its reputation of great schools and a great place to live.

“Our economy isn’t growing” and that is causing a lot of problems, he said.

“We need to recognize our County is changing,” and is becoming an “increasingly global community.”

In District 3, incumbent Katz defeated Ben Shnider by a few hundred votes. While the margin was tight, Katz was pleased that he earned about 10 percent more of the vote than he did during his last election.

“We certainly did better, and for that, I am very grateful and very humble,” he said.

His main emphasis in the upcoming term will be to decrease the County debt. If debt were a County department, it would be the third largest department, he said.

“We need to correct that” while at the same time properly funding education, transportation and public safety, he said.

See full article here: https://mont.thesentinel.com/2018/06/27/county-council-incumbents-among-democrat-winners-in-primary/.