In 2006, the GOP has fielded its strongest slate of African-American candidates in decades, with no one more hotly recruited than Michael Steele, the party's Senate candidate in Maryland. Maryland's population is 28 percent African-American; black Republicans have traditionally failed to appeal to black voters, but Steele is determined to change that this year by focusing on middle-class black voters in suburban Washington, D.C. Currently Maryland's lieutenant governor, he has proved he can win statewide. Steele is the presumptive Republican nominee, while Ben Cardin, an ex-representative to Congress, and Kweisi Mfume, former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, are the Democratic front-runners in the September primary. Cardin has a big fundraising lead over Mfume, who is campaigning as an outsider. With African-Americans accounting for up to 40 percent of the Democratic vote, race is also emerging as a factor in the primary; Mfume has suggested his party wants black voters but not black candidates. An April poll had both Democrats beating Steele.