Mayor Rawlings-Blake Announces She Will Not Run for Reelection

Says campaign would distract from challenging decisions facing Baltimore

BALTIMORE, Md. (September 11, 2015)—Mayor Rawlings-Blake today announced that she will not seek reelection in 2016, saying that the distractions of running a campaign would interfere with the critical challenges facing Baltimore in the coming months.
“As I prepared to engage in a vigorous mayoral campaign and participated in planning meetings with my campaign team and volunteers, I came to the realization that every moment that I spend running for mayor would take away from the urgent responsibilities to the City that I love,” Mayor Rawlings-Blake said. “Over the next 15 months, my time would be best spent focused on continuing to move the City forward and building upon our progress, without the distraction of campaign politics.”
Mayor Rawlings-Blake noted her many achievements in office, including instituting pension reform, developing the City’s first 10-year financial plan, earning the City’s highest combined bond rating in decades, implementing ethics reform, reducing property taxes, investing in repairing the police department’s relationship with the community, reducing unemployment by a third, attacking blight through Vacants to Value, reducing teen pregnancies by a third, and securing more than $1 billion for school construction.
“As I work with the U.S. Department of Justice to reform our police department, as I fight for more recreational opportunities for our youth, as I seek to attract new businesses and new investments to Baltimore, I do not want to see every difficult decision be evaluated, questioned and critiqued within the context of how it affects a political campaign,” Mayor Rawlings-Blake said.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake said she will continue to pursue her ambitious agenda for Baltimore during her remaining 15 months in office, including working to improve police-community relations, fighting for her ambitious plan to invest $136 million in Recreation Centers for our communities, and continuing to create new jobs and attack neighborhood blight.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake said, “Let me clear that business of government will continue and I will continue to work to Grow Baltimore. I love this City, and I pledge to work for this City’s future, both during my remaining time as mayor and beyond.”