Baltimore Mayor Won’t Seek Re-Election

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake won’t be seeking re-election. “It was a very difficult decision, but I knew I needed to spend time, the remaining 15 months of my term, focused on the city’s future and not my own,” she said at a Thursday morning news conference. Rawlings-Blake was set to face multiple Democratic challengers in the April primary, despite a strong push to connect with voters ahead of the election. Baltimore has logged more 229 homicides this year, a figure surpassing much larger cities, as it continues to reel from unrest following the April death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.