People are quick to share their beliefs and opinions on a variety of issues with him during transactions, said Duck, who is a sales manager at the electronics store Best Buy.

“It’s just a more populist type of look onto it,” he said. “A man-of-the-people-type thing.”

Duck is among six candidates vying for one of the three open seats in legislative District 4.

Duck came in third place in his Primary Election race, bringing in 31.6% of the vote. He finished behind Andrew Duck and Millicent Hall — his father and sister, respectively.

The other three candidates in the general election are Republicans April Fleming Miller and incumbent delegates Barrie Ciliberti and Jesse Pippy.

The Maryland general election will be held on Nov. 8.

Brandon Duck noted that he has similar beliefs to his father and sister, but he was quick to add that they are not carbon copies of each other. Although they are family members, they have different life experiences, which means the way they look at the world varies, Duck said. Their stances on certain policies do, too.

He first learned that some in District 4 don’t have Wi-Fi while working at Best Buy. He was shocked when his customers told him about their struggles to access the internet.

“It literally just never occurred to me that no one could get internet,” he said. “It’s easy not to see the problems you’re not looking for.”

The internet should be treated as a public utility, similar to the telephone system, he said. That would allow the government to be partly involved in determining the location of cell towers and make sure internet lines are equitably distributed across the county, he said.

Inflation, “the big elephant in the room,” is another pressing issue to residents of District 4, Duck said.

The problem of rising prices is complicated and would be difficult to tackle on a district level, Duck said. But bringing more green energy jobs to Frederick County would provide opportunities for higher salaries to residents.

If elected, Duck said, he’d want to help existing solar farms in the area expand, and work to bring green energy start-ups to the county. He’d also consider seeking federal funding for additional solar farms.

He described declining infrastructure and a flawed mental health care system as being among the biggest public safety issues facing District 4 residents.

Crime is easy to make into a “sexy, scary” problem, Duck said.

“But what’s going to be more damaging,” he said, “is if our buildings aren’t up to code, if our bridges aren’t up to code, if our roads are potentially damaging to our vehicles or to our people.”

Duck said that if elected, he’d advocate for directing more money to repairing existing infrastructure, rather than building new bridges and roads. He also stressed the need to de-stigmatize seeking mental health care and make education more affordable for aspiring social workers and therapists.

Although District 4 has more registered Republicans than Democrats, Duck said, the division between parties is more artificial than reality. People may disagree on some issues, but, at the end of the day, they’re more alike than they are different.

“You know your neighbors,” he said. “They may be liberal or conservative, Republican, independent or Democrat. That doesn’t make anybody a bad person. That doesn’t make anybody your enemy. We need to be able to get out of that box.”