An independent journalist known for confronting the State Department over Gaza is challenging a well-funded Democratic incumbent, a test of whether anti-war candidates can break the two-party lock.

• Sam Husseini is running in Maryland's fourth district against Glenn Ivey, an incumbent already sitting on half a million dollars.
• He is running outside both parties on a Green Party ballot line, betting that voters in a deep-blue district will break from straight-ticket habits.
• His platform: shut down the war machine, end bailouts and subsidies for big companies, and pour money into policing corporate crime instead of street crime.
• He expects the establishment's main tactic to be ignoring him rather than attacking him, given his record on Gaza and on COVID's lab-leak origins.
• He is skeptical of Tucker Carlson's third-party push, warning that outsider voices often get absorbed into the establishment once a new war needs selling.

Outlook: A long-shot race, but one worth watching as a gauge of how much appetite voters have for candidates outside the two parties.