Speculation is rife that 2010 is the year for another Republican victory in the Maryland gubernatorial election (the second since 1966). The speculation revolves particularly around whether former Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. will run against current Democratic governor, Martin O'Malley.
As an observer of Maryland government and politics for nearly 25 years, my take is that in any statewide race in Maryland - governor, attorney general, comptroller - a good Democratic candidate running a good campaign beats a good Republican candidate running a good campaign just about every time.
The Democrat will win because:
•Maryland is a deep blue state. There are currently 1.9 million registered Democrats, 900,000 Republicans, 480,000 unaffiliated voters and about 85,000 other voters in the state, a huge advantage to the Democrats.
•New registrations have been inclining significantly toward the Democrats for the last eight years (including when Mr. Ehrlich ran for office and was governor). In non-election years, the registration margin was between 1.5 and 2 favoring the Democrats, and in election years it ranged from 2 to 1 to more than 3 to 1.
•Voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic jurisdictions of Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George's counties have turned out and will continue to turn out in large numbers and will vote overwhelmingly for a good Democratic candidate who runs a good campaign.
•A good Democratic candidate will come close to breaking even in or will win Baltimore County, the critical battleground in statewide elections. In 2002, Mr. Ehrlich, a good Republican candidate, ran a good (thought not exceptional) campaign against Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (a not-so-good Democratic candidate), who ran perhaps the worst gubernatorial campaign in recent memory. Mr. Ehrlich's strategy and message largely were: "I'm not her!" He won by more than 66,000 votes statewide (and took Baltimore County, his home jurisdiction, 61.2 percent to 38 percent).
In 2006, Mr. Ehrlich, a popular incumbent Republican governor and a good candidate, ran a weak campaign against and lost to Mr. O'Malley, a good Democratic candidate who ran a very strong campaign. Mr. O'Malley won by 6.5 percent statewide, almost 117,000 votes. (Mr. Ehrlich won Baltimore County, but only by 50.9 percent to 47.9 percent.).
Many observers are arguing that, because of gubernatorial victories by Republicans in 2009 in Virginia and New Jersey and a Republican U.S. Senate victory last week in Massachusetts, Maryland is likely to elect a Republican governor this year. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts elections are not terribly germane to Maryland in 2010 because, in all three, weak Democratic candidates ran poor campaigns against strong, effective GOP candidates.
While the national mood may have played a part in the elections in Virginia and New Jersey, it did not play a major one. National politics played a greater role in Massachusetts, but still, as the late House Speaker and Massachusetts politician Tip O'Neill said, "All politics is local." Well, maybe not all, but certainly most.
Moreover, the Massachusetts example is particularly misleading for three important reasons. Unlike Maryland, where the Democratic Party has a better than 2 to 1 lead in voter registration over the GOP (57 percent versus 27 percent), most Massachusetts voters (51 percent) are registered as independents. Only 37 percent are registered as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans. And independents - as their name suggests - are more likely than party adherents to vote independently, as shown last week in Massachusetts and by the voters' historic choices for governor. This leads to another point. Since 1961, Massachusetts voters have been more likely to elect Republicans than Democrats to the governor's office. Seven of 13 Massachusetts governors during that period were Republicans, serving 28 of the past 48 years (versus the Democrats' six governors who served a total of 20 years). Maryland, by contrast, has had two Republican governors who served a combined total of six years in the same period.
Finally, African-Americans, who vote almost solidly Democratic (even when the Republican party fields an African-American candidate - as in Michael Steele in 2006), make up 29 percent of Maryland's population but only 7 percent in Massachusetts. This gives the Democrats a starting advantage in this state of enormous significance.
As a result of all of these factors, my prediction today (acknowledging that a lot can happen between now and November) is that if Mr. Ehrlich chooses runs against Mr. O'Malley - and I am not sure that he will - Mr. O'Malley will win by at least 6 percentage points, if not more.
Professor Donald F. Norris directs the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research and the National Center for the Study of Elections at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His e-mail is norris@umbc.edu.
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