She represents a majority black constituency. Electoral victory for her and her team depends upon turnout. "Heightened racial tension" accomplishes two objectives:
(a)It brings more of her constituents into the process
(b)It discourages those opposed to her activities from taking part in the process through fear and intimidation.
Additionally, Baltimore is notorious for vote fraud, so keeping the opposition from voting is important, even if the core constituency doesn't make it to the polls.
The ‘Demoncratics’ will not be happy until they have completely Balkanized American. The time isn’t far off when you will see little (perhaps even big) ‘Sarajevos’ here in American.