Maria Mandela Vismale

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Maria Mandela Vismale

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Republican Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 3, 2020

Personal

Birthplace

Baltimore, Md.

Contact

Campaign website

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Maria Mandela Vismale (Republican Party) ran for election to the Baltimore City Council to represent District 5 in Maryland. She lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.

Vismale completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Maria Mandela Vismale was born in Baltimore, Maryland.

Elections

2020

See also: City elections in Baltimore, Maryland (2020)

General election

General election for Baltimore City Council District 5

Incumbent Isaac Schleifer defeated Maria Mandela Vismale in the general election for Baltimore City Council District 5 on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Isaac Schleifer (D)	88.4	16,688
	Submit photo	Maria Mandela Vismale (R)	10.6	2,007
		Other/Write-in votes	1.0	190

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 18,885
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Baltimore City Council District 5

Incumbent Isaac Schleifer defeated Christopher Ervin in the Democratic primary for Baltimore City Council District 5 on June 2, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Isaac Schleifer	63.1	7,923
		Christopher Ervin	36.9	4,635

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 12,558
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Baltimore City Council District 5

Maria Mandela Vismale advanced from the Republican primary for Baltimore City Council District 5 on June 2, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Submit photo	Maria Mandela Vismale	100.0	543

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 543
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Maria Mandela Vismale completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Vismale's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Growing up in Baltimore taught Maria the importance of hard work and community involvement. She learned to combine faith and works. As a youth, Maria rallied the community with members of the Howard Park Civic Association for a new grocery store on Liberty Heights (which is now ShopRite). She served at Saint Peter Claver Soup Kitchen, a soup kitchen that her family started. She also spoke out as a Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (B.U.I.L.D) Youth Advocate in front of City Council and national newspapers at the age of 17, for increased recreation centers funding.

From attending Grove Park Elementary Public School to graduating from the first HBCU Lincoln University founded in 1854 - during her time there, she studied abroad on a scholarship in Prague, Czech Republic, Maria understands how important education/ training options are for every child to become a productive adult. Maria, also, understands the importance of history and helped bring back the NAACP to her campus where she registered students to vote and wrote her chapter's Constitution/bylaws before graduating.

After graduating, one of her first jobs after college was as a salesperson at a local car dealership Exclusive Motor Cars. She loved her interactions with everyday people during her time in that role. Maria believes that public service requires one to be a skilled communicator, negotiator, and having a genuine love for people.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Crime: Ramp up community-based diversion programs for first time, non-violent offenders. Improve harm reduction strategies for substance use disorders/chronic drug users. Re-examine the role of community liaisons/public meetings in the fed/local consent decree-focus and prioritize "quality of life" crimes.
• Enhance Education: Establish private sector-public school partnerships that combine school with technical training & paid work. Audit the Baltimore City Public School System to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; Reduce the current 7 administrator per student ratio. Explore vouchers and charter school options for students in failing schools. Address contractor overruns to optimize funding and rebuild schools infrastructure.
• Improve Economy: Prioritize a comprehensive audit of current city expenditures and drastically decrease administrative bloat and property tax rates I.E Lower city property taxes (highest in Maryland). Identify ways to incentivize private employers to subsidize use of public transportation for employees. Encourage Board of Estimates to offer contracts for local eco-friendly contractors while collaborating to create private/public partnerships to reinvest and rebuild boarded up homes.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Improve the economy by involving the community. Workers want to see an investment on their return when they pay taxes and need dependable city resources. Elected officials need to pass responsible policies to ensure small businesses can compete and a good quality of life is within reach for all families.

Combat crime using a comprehensive approach. We need to build trust, be safe, and weed out corruption. To feel safe, Baltimoreans must first trust that political leaders, civil servants and community leaders have their best interests in mind.

Enhance education by providing opportunities. There must be system wide emphasis on providing educational outreach. Coming from a family of educators, I would create a coalition of teachers and parents in every neighborhood to involve all parties, reinvest in the youth and provide them with tools to streamline them to success rather than pipeline to prison.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

As a third generation Baltimorean, I know we can do better. The problems that my home city had when I was a child such as crime, education that fails students and a lagging economy are still hurting residents today. Bad policies have failed & left too many Baltimoreans hurt and forgotten andI am sick and tired of the status quo.

But, I was brought up to work toward solutions when I see problems. I'm hopeful when I see people from all walks of life coming together for what's right. Im already working on behalf of the people as a defense investigator and I know that I have the skills to get to the bottom of the issues. As your next Councilwoman, I promise to bring a fresh fair perspective to heal people who feel hurt, left behind, in order to bring unity, prosperity, and progress to the district.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

At 10 I picketed for a local business. At 17 I spoke in front of city council making the case for youth resources to pipeline my peers to success rather than prison.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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