GOP candidate Kimberly Klacik believes she can flip Elijah Cummings' Baltimore district
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Republican strategist Kimberly Klacik explained Thursday how she won the primary in late Rep. Elijah Cummings' Maryland congressional district.
“For the past year or so, I’ve been going around in communities and talking to people. I believe I won the primary off of those grassroots efforts,” Klacik told, “Fox & Friends First.”
Klacik explained that the district has voted Democrat since 1953 and facing incumbent Kweisi Mfume, who held the seat before Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., will be a challenge.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FORMER NAACP HEAD KWEISI MFUME WINS DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY IN RACE TO FINISH ELIJAH CUMMINGS' TERM
Mfume won the Democratic primary for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District on Tuesday in the race to finish the rest of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings' term in Congress.
Mfume, who served as the district's congressman for five terms between 1987 and 1996 and went on to lead the NAACP, beat out a crowded field of 23 other Democrats vying for the seat, and which included Cummings’ second wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, and his former staffer Harry Spikes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Klacik, who received national attention after her social media posts showing trash in Baltimore prompted President Trump to tweet that the district is a “disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess,” won the Republican primary.
Klacik touted Trump’s prison reform actions that were addressed in the State of the Union speech. Klacik said that she is telling Baltimore residents that Trump is reversing the repercussions of a crime bill that Mfume signed in 1994 during his tenure as a congressman.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Klacik went on to say, “What I try to remind people is if you take a look at President Trump -- take a look at prison reform, First Step Act, he’s actually just rewinding and fixing what was broken with that crime bill that led to so much mass incarceration that you really see in the greater Baltimore area.”
Klacik said that Baltimore has problems of crime and education and that people are ready for a change.
Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.