EASTON -- The first person to win the Eastern Shore's new minority seat in the House of Delegates is not a minority. But Delegate-elect Don B. Hughes is pledging that he will represent all races equally.
A close contest for District 37A -- a new district that includes parts of Dorchester and Wicomico counties -- finally was resolved with Friday's tally of a last batch of absentee and overseas ballots that gave the Republican farmer a total of 2,791 votes, 20 more than black Democrat Rudolph C. Cane.
The district was created this year to help give minorities a stronger voice in the General Assembly after civil rights activists won a lawsuit charging that the state should have designed such a district when it redrew political boundaries two years ago.
In theory, blacks were supposed to have won the election because they make up about 60 percent of the district. No black has ever won a seat in the General Assembly from the Eastern Shore.
But Mr. Hughes, a white political neophyte, carried the election by defeating Mr. Cane and Lemuel D. Chester, a black Dorchester County commissioner who ran as an independent.
Mr. Hughes, 53, said he was eager to put the racial issue behind him. He said he would form a steering committee of 10 district residents -- six black and four white -- to help him address local issues when he goes to Annapolis.
"I represent all the citizens of 37A," said Mr. Hughes, "and they will be represented."