Black Lives Matter activist loses big in Baltimore mayoral primary

DeRay Mckesson, the activist who rose to prominence following 2014 protests against police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri, will not be the next mayor of Baltimore.

Mckesson had tried to transition from activism to politics with a late jump into his home city's race for mayor, but managed to pull in only 3% of Democratic primary voters on Tuesday. Maryland State Sen. Catherine Pugh took home the Democratic primary with around 37% of the vote as of this writing, according to The Baltimore Sun. 

In a city where Democratic voters dominate the voting population, the race for Democratic nominee is often the de facto race to become mayor.

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Mckesson was a late entry into the race, and was never able to translate his immense social media following into a significant following on the ground in Baltimore. 

Earlier polls showed Mckesson with less than 1% of the vote, and though he did manage to pull in three times that number--equating to more than 3,000 votes with 287 of 296 precincts counted--the gap between him and Pugh proved far too wide to bridge despite a hard door-knocking push in the final few weeks of his campaign. Mckesson was running in sixth out of 13 candidates as of this writing.

The activist was lauded for the specificity of his policy platforms, but found it difficult to tap into groups of voters that could have offered a groundswell of support. 

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Many activists in the area who appeared on the surface to be Mckesson's natural allies turned out to view the Baltimore native as an outsider who wanted to return home and sit atop city government. 

Mckesson has been quiet about plans following the race, not wanting to look ahead while he was still in the middle of his campaign.

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