In District 34, Republican Sen. Bob Cassilly’s lead over former Del. Mary-Dulany James has narrowed. Yesterday, MDJ trailed Cassilly by 446. After today’s count of provisionals, she now trails by 259. There is still one more round of absentee ballots to count.
Meanwhile, in District 34A, Republican Del. Glen Glass now lags 129 votes behind Democrat Steve Johnson. Seems small but several multiples more than his lead yesterday.
The counting continues of absentee and provisional ballots. Right now, several elections remain very close.
In District 33 (Anne Arundel), the gap has already narrowed. Republicans are in danger of losing one of the three delegate seats. Democrat Heather Bagwell trails Del. Tony McConkey by just 196 votes. In 2012, McConkey attracted unwanted attention:
McConkey, an Anne Arundel County Republican, was ordered to pay $75,000 for what an administrative law judge called “fraudulent and unethical” behavior in real estate transactions. In one instance, the state found McConkey promised to help a woman keep her home, then didn’t return her calls, bought her property in foreclosure and sought to evict her.
He then sponsored legislation to make it easier for him to get his real estate license back.
District 34A (Havre de Grace) remains a nail biter. Incumbent Del. Glen Glass current trails Democrat Steve Johnson by just 19 votes. Del Mary Ann Lisanti appears to have a lock on the second seat.
District 34 (Harford) appears to have been a bit of a sleeper in the Senate as well as the House. Four years ago, Democratic Del. Mary-Dulany James sought to move from the House to the Senate, and got caught in the undertow, losing to now Sen. Bob Cassilly by 43% to 57%.
James tried a comeback this year. I figured that Cassilly was safe as an ensconced incumbent in tough territory for Democrats. But James sure is doing her best to prove me wrong. She trails Cassilly by 446 votes. Not such an easy catch up in a district where absentee ballots don’t lean especially Democratic but still intriguing.
Meanwhile, over in District 9 (Howard/Carroll), Democrat Katie Fry Hester has claimed victory over incumbent Republican Sen. Gail Bates. Hester’s victory has grown to 531 votes as more ballots have been counted.
If I’m missing any other close ones, let me know.
Any House of Delegates district that is crosspressured in the sense of having voted for Clinton in the 2016 presidential and for Hogan in the 2014 gubernatorial made this list. It additionally includes one district that elected a Democratic delegate in 2014 despite leaning Republican in these two contests.
Nevertheless, in many ways, the House of Delegates races are less interesting than the Senate. Republicans correctly perceive their chances of obtaining a veto-sustaining minority as greater in the Senate than the House.
Del. Robert Flanagan in District 9B is the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in either house of the General Assembly. While Hogan won his district by 16 in 2014, Clinton won it by 19 in 2016. This Howard district is exactly the type that is trending hard towards the Democrats due to its highly educated electorate.
Even worse for Flanagan, his opponent is Courtney Watson. While Watson lost the county executive race to Allen Kittleman in 2014, she is a well-known and experienced candidate. Flanagan will need all the luck he can get to hang on to his seat.
While Republican Glen Glass is likely safe in District 34A, any Democrat in Harford County always has to watch their back. Del. Mary Ann Lisanti who also represents 34A is no exception. The district, centered on Havre de Grace, went slightly for Clinton in 2016. The likelihood that Hogan will roll up an even greater margin than the 23 points he won in 2014 is no help to Lisanti. Still, she’s established and voters here clearly are used to splitting tickets.
In east Baltimore County District 8, the Republicans are likely safe and looking to take sole Democrat Del. Eric Bromwell’s seat. But Bromwells have long been a strong candidate in this district and he may be a tad better positioned than Sen. Kathy Klausmeier.
But Johnny Oleszewski’s family also had its own brand in neighboring District 6 before he lost in 2014. Bromwell came in third in 2014. While the best candidate that the Democrats could run, the question remains whether Bromwell can overcome a Hogan margin even more massive than the 36 points from 2014 in a district moving away from the Democrats.
Seeking a second term, Del. Ned Carey already represents Republican territory in District 31A in Anne Arundel. It went for Trump over Clinton by 4 points and for Hogan over Brown by 30 points. I suppose the good news for him is that the Hogan margin was smaller than in Bromwell’s district.
If he won this turf in tough 2014, Carey may be hard to dislodge in a more favorable 2018. Still, Carey won by just 52.6% in 2014, so has only a small cushion. Located just south of Baltimore City, the question is whether a less hellacious political climate can overcome an even larger margin for Hogan.
In District 30, Speaker Busch is looking to pick up the seat being vacated for his long-time bête noire Herb McMillan. While the Republicans always look to take out Busch, the recent Democratic sweep in Annapolis bodes far better for a Democratic pickup than a surprise defeat of Maryland’s longest serving Speaker.
I doubt Republicans will take out either Del. Michael Jackson in District 27B or pickup any of the three delegate seats in District 32, though Del. Michael Chang is the only incumbent running. Clinton won both districts by at least 12 points. Hogan’s margins will not be high enough to allow Republicans to capitalize on the gov’s success when split-ticket voting is rampant.
It seems virtually impossible that the Democrats will lose seats in Districts 3A, 11, ,12 or 42A. Hillary Clinton won all of these districts by more than 17 points. Voters in these districts are happy to split their tickets in the gubernatorial but it won’t be enough to take out the Democratic delegate candidates.
In District 3, Sen. Ron Young is endangered but District 3A excludes the most Republican turf. Dels. Carol Krimm and Karen Young should return to the House.
In District 11, the Republicans are running only one candidate. Incumbents Shelly Hettleman and Dana Stein will be rejoined by Jon Cardin, who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2014.
District 12 contains much territory in Howard with many highly educated voters of the sort that are moving Democratic this year. There is little reason to think that the Republicans will close the substantial gap of several thousand votes from 2014. In any case, their top vote getter from that year is running for Senate. I expect Democratic Dels. Eric Ebersole and Terri Hill to be joined by Jessica Feldmark.
Incumbent Stephen Lafferty did not run for Senate and instead chose to seek reelection in District 42A. While Hogan will carry this district, it is hard to imagine Republicans defeating Lafferty in a district that went for Clinton by 30 points.
After a long hiatus, 7S is resuming its rating of legislative races for the 2018 election. Previous posts covered Safe Democratic, Safe Republican, and Lean Republican seats.
All four Likely Republican seats are outside shots for the Democrats. But if the anti-Trump whirlwind hits Maryland in 2018 and sweeps away Republicans, here is where it is likely to strike. Democrats need strong candidates here in order to be prepared to take advantage and to put the Republican on defense.
Del. Folden won election in 2014 from District 3B, a singleton subdistrict of fiercely contested Frederick County D3. More Republican than 3A, Hogan carried 3B by 28 points in 2014 and Trump beat Clinton by 6 in 2016.
However, Folden’s 56% victory margin lagged far behind the more popular Hogan. While Hogan will undoubtedly carry this area again, the question remains of by how much. Frederick continues to trend Democratic, which doesn’t help Folden either.
Democrats were demoralized and did badly in the 2014 midterm election but the reverse situation could be Folden’s undoing. One can well imagine a scenario in which Trump continues to perform below expectations, weakening Republican support and turnout in contrast to angry Democrats.
Notice that the same swing needed for Clinton to have won the district in 2016 would also ejected Folden in 2014.
Del. Joe Cluster was appointed in 2016 to fill the seat won by his father, John Cluster. Del. Christian Miele was newly elected to the House in 2014. Miele and John Cluster won that election in Baltimore County’s District 8 with the equivalent of around 58% of the vote.
Unusually, they share their three delegate district with a Democrat, Del. Eric Bromwell, who is also the son of a former legislator. Bromwell trailed his Republican seatmates with the equivalent of just 50.1%–about 5% ahead of the third Republican–in an area of Baltimore County that has been seen as moving Republican.
Bromwell’s shaky hold despite his long experience in the House combined with Hogan’s 36 point victory ought to indicate that the Republicans should be fine. But Trump lost the district by 1% to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and notice that the Republicans significantly underperformed compared to Hogan.
While Hogan is on the ballot, Trump is now President. Instead of riding an anti-Democratic wave, Cluster and Miele will have to contend with anti-Trump sentiment. Candidates in both parties always have to run hard here. Though well positioned, Cluster and Miele will likely have to run harder in 2018, as this is the sort of territory in which Trump’s unpopularity upset the increasing comfort felt by Republicans.
Like Cluster and Miele, second-term Harford Del. Glen Glass holds one of the rare multimember districts split between the two parties. In 2014, he won with 57%, ahead of the 53% won by newcomer Democratic Del. Mary Ann Lisanti and the 48% gained by his losing Republican ticket mate.
Harford County has been a growing Republican suburb but Democrats have nonetheless managed to retain a foothold in two-member District 34A. Before Lisanti, Mary Dulany James did well in delegate elections despite losing the senatorial election in larger D34 in 2014.
Like Baltimore County’s D8, D34A went for Hogan in 2014 but then narrowly for Clinton in 2016. But this subdistrict is less strongly Republican. Hogan won by 28 and Clinton won by 2. The anti-Democratic winds blowing in 2014 that undermined Del. James’ senate bid won’t be blowing in 2018.
Glass remains the favorite but, like D8, this is one of those districts that candidates from neither party can take for granted. If voters in Maryland’s outer suburbs turn on Republicans in a backlash against Trump, his reelection fight could be much tougher than anticipated, particularly if the Democrats find a good candidate.
