After Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes announced that he was retiring, Democratic Congressman Benjamin Cardin defeated Republican Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele, with fifty five p.c of the vote, from Steele's 44 p.c. Congressman Steny Hoyer (MD-5), a Democrat, was elected as Majority Leader for the 110th Congress and 111th Congress of the House of Representatives, serving in that post yet again starting off in 2019.