The Maryland Sierra Club is endorsing Council Vice President Will Jawando for Montgomery County executive in the Nov. 3 general election, shifting its support away from Evan Glass after backing him during the primary.

Al Carr, the former District 18 delegate who serves as political chair for the Montgomery County Sierra Club, said Jawando's work on data centers drove the decision. "We appreciate the great policy work he has done on the impact of data centers," Carr wrote in an email to Bethesda Magazine on Aug. 22.

The endorsement follows the County Council's unanimous July 28 vote to impose an 18-month moratorium on new data center permits. That moratorium was a compromise between Glass's six-month proposal and Jawando's push for a two-year pause. Glass sponsored the final bill; Jawando and Councilmember Marilyn Balcombe supported it. The measure passed 11-0.

Jawando, an at-large councilmember and the Democratic nominee, won the primary with about 40% of the vote. Glass finished third with roughly 22%. The Sierra Club's Montgomery County arm had endorsed Glass in January 2026.

Carr said Jawando earned two-thirds support from the Montgomery County Executive Committee, with the state chapter concurring. He did not directly answer why the club initially supported Glass before switching, according to Bethesda Magazine.

Both Jawando and Glass received Sierra Club endorsements in their successful at-large council bids in 2018 and 2022. The club's campaign page for Jawando also cites his record on building decarbonization, forest conservation, clean energy and climate equity.

Data centers have emerged as a defining issue in the race. The council's moratorium replaced a six-month executive order that County Executive Marc Elrich signed in June 2026, and it runs until early 2028. A proposed 360-megawatt, five-building campus by California-based Atmosphere Data Centers at a former coal-fired power plant in Dickerson was a central driver of public pressure for the pause.

"The worst thing you can do is try to rush because once it's built and all these things are in place, you can't go back," Jawando told Maryland Matters on Aug. 10, discussing the moratorium.

Montgomery County is among 13 Maryland counties that have enacted temporary data center moratoriums as of August 2026.

Jawando will face Republican nominee Esther Wells, a certified public accountant and president of the Montgomery County Taxpayers League, on Nov. 3.