Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman has secured another four-year term in the city’s top office, defeating local activist Tiffany Kelly by an almost 3-to-1 margin, according to the city’s unofficial results.

Ashman was reelected alongside City Council members Lisa Henderson and Jim McNulty, who ran together as a slate. The incumbent mayor garnered 74% of the vote, while Kelly, a federal employee, secured just 26%.

“I feel lucky and gratified for the trust this community has invested in me,” Ashman said. “And I’m so happy for Lisa and Jim. We have a wonderful team. It’s a ringing endorsement for this government and says the city is on a good track.”

Richard Jones, 76, and his wife, Claudine, 78, have voted in every municipal election since they first moved to Gaithersburg nearly 50 years ago. On Tuesday, they took to the polls to “keep Jud Ashman in office,” Claudine Jones said.

“We think he’s done a wonderful job.”

Richard Jones considers Gaithersburg a great place to live, and it stuck with him when Ashman described leading the city as “a labor of love.”

“I told him that you could tell that was the case,” Richard Jones said.

Kelly, who ran on raising the city’s affordable housing requirements and rent stabilization, had focused her campaign on bringing in more disengaged voters through door knocking and other community events.

“I did expect a much closer race, based on the feedback that we were getting both at the polls and in the field,” Kelly said. “But the people have spoken.”

Margaret Campbell, who’s now retired, said she’s lived in the Gaithersburg area her entire life. But Tuesday was her first time voting in a city election.

She decided to vote this year because a member of Kelly’s campaign team, who was canvassing the community, stopped by her home. She said her interaction with the staffer and the information she gleaned from a mailer swayed her to vote for Kelly.

“I probably wouldn’t even have voted if they hadn’t [come] past my house,” she said. “I just said, ‘Well, let me give her a chance.’”

Kelly also brought Ethan Thompson, 28, out to the polls for his first time voting in a city election.

Thompson, who’s lived in Gaithersburg for the last four years, felt Kelly was the candidate more focused on lowering the area’s cost of living, which “has gone astronomical around Gaithersburg.”

He hopes to continue to afford to live in Gaithersburg, an area he’s felt is especially invested in its youth. That’s a personal issue for Thompson, whose son Christian, 3, accompanied him to the polls.

But for Liz Brandenburg, 77, Ashman was the better candidate to tackle the county’s housing affordability problem and other issues.

“The way he just keeps the city moving has been really good,” said Brandenburg, a long-time Gaithersburg resident and a regular voter in city elections. “I think if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

The cost of living is one of the most pressing issues in Gaithersburg. Nine in 10 residents in the Gaithersburg and Germantown area have cited housing costs and their overall cost of living as a problem in a September poll from The Banner.

Ashman says he plans to encourage more housing construction in the area, contending that the county needs a larger supply of available units to bring down rents and mortgages.

On public safety, the mayor has touted the work of the Gaithersburg Police Department and highlighted the city’s Drone as First Responder Program as a way to decrease tensions between officers and community members.

To improve transit, Ashman has called on county officials to find a way to fund expanded bus lines in the city.

But Ashman said the issue that “keeps me up at night most” is responding to changes in the federal government under President Donald Trump.

In the Gaithersburg and Germantown area, 3 in 4 people said in the earlier Banner poll that they’d been either personally affected or knew someone affected by the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers.

Ashman raised about $17,000 to fund his campaign. Kelly brought in a similar amount.

Among his major donors were former U.S. Rep. David Trone and his wife, who gave $2,000, and the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington, a lobbying group for local landlords and developers, which gave $1,000.

Sidney Katz, the County Council member, contributed $200 to the mayor’s reelection bid.

The 54-year-old Ashman has been the city’s mayor since 2014, though he is currently finishing just his second four-year term. He first ascended to the position after the mayor at the time, Katz, was elected to the County Council.

There has been speculation that Ashman may also look to run for County Council while serving as mayor — a possibility he declined to rule out during the campaign.

Katz is vacating his seat in December 2026, and Ashman may be seen as a natural successor to the seat representing Gaithersburg.

Henderson picked up 37% of the votes for City Council, and McNulty picked up 31%.

“I am so happy that the band is still together,” said Henderson. “The city of Gaithersburg won today.”