DC and Baltimore are pretty different. DC is pretty Democratic for reasons which everyone has already discussed. Baltimore is not actually that Democratic. Obviously the city is pretty D, as are some of the Southwestern suburbs (which are as much in the DC sphere of influence as Baltimore) but the suburbs which aren't also DC suburbs vote pretty competitively, including the pretty GOP exurban counties of Carroll and Harford.
Yeah people forget that Harris is the Eastern Shore district but actually came from a suburban district,. His hometown is literally like 15 minutes from Baltimore! Meanwhile the moderate GOP incumbent that got primaried was from Kent County in the Eastern shore
Del Tachi when he made that poll asking which state was more Southern was partially right in that Maryland is still very much a Southern state outside the DC counties albiet those counties are much too large a portion of Maryland to call it a Southern state.
The only reason Harris lost in 2008 for the Maryland 1st district was because the Eastern shore voted for his D opponent because he was far too fiscally conservative. By now both the stagnancy of the suburbs along with the right wing trend of the Eastern shore makes the district equal in both parts.
