Three candidates with direct African roots competed for the same congressional seat in one of the most diverse primaries the DMV has ever seen.
When voters in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District went to the polls on June 23, they were choosing from a field of 24 Democratic candidates competing to replace Steny Hoyer, one of the longest-serving members of Congress in American history. Hidden inside that crowded ballot was something the DMV region had never seen before: three candidates with direct African roots running for the same congressional seat, in one of the most heavily African immigrant counties in the country.
State Del. Adrian Boafo, the son of Ghanaian immigrants and a former Hoyer campaign aide, emerged as the winner. At 32, he has likely cleared the highest barrier to becoming the district’s next representative. With Democrats holding a voter registration advantage of more than two to one over Republicans in the district, according to Ballotpedia’s coverage of the primary results, the general election is rated Solid Democratic by major forecasters.
“The Democratic voters of the 5th Congressional District decided that it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation,” Boafo said in his victory speech at the IBEW Local 26 union hall in Lanham, as reported by the Baltimore Banner.
Three candidates, three African stories, one district
Boafo was not alone as a candidate carrying African heritage into this race. Quincy Bareebe, a Ugandan-American who founded and runs Royal Home Care, a home healthcare company based in Maryland, poured $5.7 million of her own money into the campaign, according to the Banner, making her the race’s most heavily self-financed candidate. She had previously challenged Hoyer directly in the 2024 Democratic primary, taking roughly 10 percent of the vote before returning this cycle with a far larger personal investment and a platform centered on expanding Medicare coverage and capping prescription drug prices.
Wala Blegay, a Prince George’s County Council member and former staff attorney with the D.C. Nurses Association, is the daughter of Liberian and Nigerian parents. She ran as the most progressive candidate in the leading tier of the field, drawing backing from the DC-area branch of the Nigerian American Public Affairs Committee alongside various other progressive organizations, according to Semafor’s coverage of the race. Her grassroots outreach targeted the African community directly. “I’ve gone to malls, churches, baby showers, weddings, community association meetings, where [African community members] gather,” Blegay told Semafor ahead of the vote.
The same outlet reported that Blegay observed a broader shift in how Maryland’s political establishment approaches the African community. “There’s now a concerted effort by a lot of elected officials to get to know the African community,” she said. “I’ve gone to events that I never used to see elected officials at, and now they are showing up to engage with African voters.”
Prince George’s County, at the heart of the district, is among the most populous areas in the country for sub-Saharan African immigrants, as Semafor noted in its reporting. The concentration of African diaspora voters in this geography made the simultaneous presence of Boafo, Bareebe, and Blegay on the same ballot something that longtime community observers described as genuinely without precedent in the region.
How Boafo built a winning coalition
Boafo entered the race with structural advantages that proved decisive. Hoyer, who served nearly 45 years in Congress before announcing his retirement in January 2026, endorsed Boafo as his preferred successor. Boafo had worked as Hoyer’s campaign manager from 2019 to 2021 and was later elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2022, where his legislative record included a wage theft protections bill, legislation on cell-phone-free schools, and measures targeting Wall Street purchases of Maryland homes, according to his campaign platform as reported by DC News Now.
Boafo’s campaign also benefited from endorsements by Gov. Wes Moore and U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, as well as support from national and state teachers’ unions. In an interview with Semafor ahead of the primary, he spoke directly about his heritage as a campaign asset rather than a complication. “From calls with church leaders to meet-and-greets across the district, I’ve focused on embracing my identity and my lived experiences that come with being Ghanaian,” he told the outlet.
His campaign drew scrutiny over outside spending. Pro-Israel and pro-cryptocurrency super PACs spent roughly $11 million supporting his candidacy, according to the Baltimore Banner, a figure that drew public criticism from several opponents and from U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who did not endorse in the race but expressed alarm about the scale of outside influence. Hoyer, speaking ahead of Boafo’s victory speech, dismissed those concerns and said his successor would be a representative “for the people, not for the interests of any special interest,” according to the Banner’s reporting.
What the result means for the DMV’s African diaspora community
The presence of three African-rooted candidates at the front of this primary did not happen by accident. It reflects a demographic reality that researchers, community organizers, and local officials have tracked for years. African-born residents in the United States now number approximately 2.4 million nationally, more than four times the figure from 2000, according to Semafor’s reporting, and Maryland’s African immigrant community has been among the most civically active in the country.
Blegay, speaking to Semafor, credited a political awakening within that community in recent years. “I think the [second] Trump election woke the African community up,” she said, referring to the return of restrictive federal immigration enforcement that has directly affected African diaspora families across Maryland and Virginia.
For AfroDMV readers, the result signals something worth watching beyond the headline. One candidate from this historic three-way contest has secured a congressional nomination. Two others now carry the name recognition, networks, and campaign experience built during this race into future cycles. The African diaspora political lane in the DMV, long underestimated by the broader political establishment, has now produced a major-party nominee heading to Congress.
The economic and civic footprint of that community has been well documented locally. A Maryland delegate cited figures during a March 2026 advocacy session showing the state’s African immigrant community contributing approximately $5.6 billion in income and $1.6 billion in taxes annually, numbers that reflect the weight the community brings to the state’s political and economic life, as covered previously in AfroDMV’s reporting on how African entrepreneurs in the DMV are building wealth and accessing capital. For more on the broader community profile that produced this political moment, see AfroDMV’s deep look at the Nigerian diaspora’s growing influence across the DMV region and 10 facts about the Cameroonian community in the DMV.