Category Archives: County Executive

Council At-Large, County Executive, transportation

Candidates Take Positions on Controversial Transportation Projects

June 8, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Suburban Maryland Transportation Alliance has released questionnaires completed by County Executive and County Council At-Large candidates on transportation issues. While many answers are similar – who doesn’t favor transportation funding? – others illuminate real differences on specific issues. Drawing on the questionnaires, here are four key projects on which the candidates disagree. (Note: unlisted candidates did not complete the questionnaire.)

Question: Do you support funding and building the missing link of the Mid-County Highway (M-83) to better connect Clarksburg and other Upcounty communities?

Executive candidates who said yes

David Blair

Robin Ficker

Rose Krasnow

Executive candidates who said no

Roger Berliner

Marc Elrich

George Leventhal

Council At-Large candidates who said yes

Rosemary Arkoian

Marilyn Balcombe

Robert Dyer

Lorna Phillips Forde

Neil Greenberger

Ashwani Jain

Michele Riley

Council At-Large candidates who said no

Gabe Albornoz

Bill Conway

Hoan Dang

Evan Glass

Seth Grimes

Will Jawando

Jill Ortman-Fouse

Hans Riemer

Question: Do you support the Maryland Traffic Relief Plan to add new express toll lanes on I-270 while keeping the existing lanes free of charge? (Editor’s note: this question contains a link to Governor Hogan’s proposals for I-270 and I-495.)

Executive candidates who said yes

Roger Berliner

Robin Ficker

Rose Krasnow

George Leventhal

Executive candidates who said no

David Blair

Marc Elrich

Council At-Large candidates who said yes

Gabe Albornoz

Rosemary Arkoian

Marilyn Balcombe

Bill Conway

Hoan Dang

Robert Dyer

Lorna Phillips Forde

Neil Greenberger

Jill Ortman-Fouse

Michele Riley

Council At-Large candidates who said no

Seth Grimes

Ashwani Jain

Will Jawando

Blair Responds to “Lies and Smears”

June 1, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

County Executive candidate David Blair has sent out the following blast email in response to criticism of his campaign over the last week.

*****

Friends,

As Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.” In the final days of a campaign some candidates start attacking with lies and smears. But our campaign isn’t going to do that.

We’re running a positive campaign focused on the important issues facing Montgomery County: growing our economy, fixing our broken infrastructure, improving our schools and making Montgomery County a place for everybody to live, work, start a business and raise a family.

And we need your help to spread the word about who I am and what I hope to accomplish for Montgomery County. Can you please share this video with friends, families, neighbors and colleagues?

David Blair is the Un Trump

Best wishes,

David

Adam Pagnucco, Bill Frick, campaign finance, County Executive, George Leventhal, Marc Elrich, Robin Ficker, Roger Berliner

Campaign Finance Reports: County Executive, May 2018

May 24, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

The May campaign finance reports are in and we will start breaking them down with the County Executive race. A note on methodology. First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period. Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others. Self-funding includes money from spouses. Third, for publicly financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in the column entitled “Cash Balance With Requested Public Contributions.” That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.

Below is our fundraising summary for the County Executive candidates.

Council Member Roger Berliner (whom your author supports) is the leader in money raised other than self-funding and also in cash on hand. He is closing in on a million dollars raised for the race, which was roughly Ike Leggett’s total in 2006. He has enough money to be heard in the final month.

Council Member Marc Elrich is the leader among the publicly financed candidates. His total raised of $745,352 is almost five times what he raised in his 2014 council race when public financing was not yet available. Elrich has a long history of vastly outperforming his fundraising because of his large and loyal base of supporters, some of whom have been with him for decades. With more than $400,000 to spend in the final month, he won’t blow anyone out, but he can combine that with a grass-roots field program to finish strong.

Businessman David Blair is going to break Steve Silverman’s fundraising record in 2006 with more than $2 million. The difference is that Silverman raised his money from the business community while Blair is mostly a self-funder. Blair’s self-financing of $1.9 million sends a message that he is deadly serious about winning. He is the strongest of the outsider candidates.

Council Member George Leventhal will get votes because of his longevity, name recognition and sheer hard work in the campaign cycle. (His brilliant Avengers-themed video could get some votes too!) But he doesn’t have enough resources to make a big push at the end.

Former Mayor of Rockville Rose Krasnow is a substantive and knowledgeable candidate who impresses those she meets. But she made two big mistakes in this campaign: getting in late and using public financing. Those mistakes reinforce each other. If she had gotten in early, she might have been able to raise enough in public financing to compete with the totals accumulated by Elrich and Leventhal. Since she did get in late, traditional financing offered a better option to raise money in a hurry. Now she is in the same situation as Leventhal and Bill Frick: struggling to make a final push.

Your author likes Delegate Bill Frick (D-16) a lot personally but he doesn’t have the resources to make his case. We wish Frick had stayed in the House of Delegates and plotted a course to succeed his former district mate, Brian Frosh, as Attorney General. The path not taken will be harder now.

Republican Robin Ficker has applied for public financing, but as of this writing, we don’t know whether he will receive it.

Overall, there are two competing narratives among those who are really focused on this race – admittedly, a minority of the voters. First, there is the view that the county should be more progressive. It should be bolder about closing the achievement gap, do more to help vulnerable residents (including renters), institute tougher environmental protections and push back against the influence of developers and big businesses. People with that perspective are mostly rallying behind Elrich, who is the overwhelming choice of progressive endorsing organizations.

Then there is the narrative advanced by your author’s writings on the county budget and the economy, the Washington Post’s endorsement editorials and the now-famous report by Sage Policy Group: to pay for progressive priorities, the county needs a stronger tax base. That message plays more to the outsider candidates, especially Blair, who put it in a recent mailer. But there’s no reason why Berliner and Leventhal shouldn’t embrace that perspective too.

It’s important to recognize that these views are not mutually exclusive. Not all progressives are skeptical of economic growth. And not all people who would like to see a stronger economy oppose spending the resulting revenue on progressive priorities. But the two messages contain differences in emphasis and differences in potential for attracting blocs of voters. Both of them represent change in some form, implying that running on resume and experience won’t be enough in this cycle – at least not in the Executive contest. Everyone needs to pick a path forward to win.

Next: the Council At-Large race.

Adam Pagnucco, Bill Frick, County Executive, Marc Elrich, Roger Berliner, washington post

What the Post’s Endorsement of Blair Means

May 14, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Washington Post’s endorsement of businessman David Blair hit like a grenade this past weekend, blowing up the County Executive race. What does it mean?

First, in reading the language of the Post’s endorsement, we are struck by how closely their views on the challenges facing the county resemble our own. The majority of these opening three paragraphs mirror what we have been writing about the county economy for years.

These seem like boom times in Montgomery County, the mainly rich suburb that has absorbed roughly 100,000 new residents since 2010 to a population now approaching 1.1 million. Amazon (whose CEO, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Post) has shortlisted the county for its second corporate headquarters; construction cranes tower over Bethesda and Silver Spring; and the public school system, one of the nation’s largest, includes some of the best high schools anywhere.

That’s why it’s easy to overlook some ominous signs of fiscal and economic trouble ahead. A burgeoning population of retirees, immigrants and other less affluent residents has strained local resources and budgets. Those moving into the county tend to be poorer than those leaving. The chasm between economically prosperous pockets (such as the ones dominated by cranes) and stagnant ones is widening. Most worrying, business and job growth are anemic.

That’s the unsettling backdrop for the June 26 Democratic primary, which is likely to determine who will run the county for the next four years. County Executive Isiah Leggett, a deft and capable manager, is retiring after 12 years in the job (and no Republican has won an election in Montgomery since 2002). The central question is which of the candidates for county executive is most capable of juicing a sluggish commercial environment — the only way to broaden the local tax base so it can sustain the county’s excellent schools and progressive services.

The Post framed the election’s central question correctly. And their policy view, clearly established in the language above, will no doubt influence their choices for County Council. That said, they do not share your author’s view that governing experience is useful for addressing these challenges. So be it.

The Post has a pretty good record in top-tier MoCo Democratic primaries. They endorsed Chris Van Hollen (CD-8) in 2002, Ike Leggett (County Executive) in 2006 and 2014 and John Delaney (CD-6) in 2012. They also endorsed Kathleen Matthews (CD-8) in 2016, who finished third.

Even so, the Post is not a king-maker; one of the good things about MoCo politics is that we have no king-makers here. But their endorsement matters, especially when five candidates are vying to be the chief rival for Marc Elrich. Consider what Roger Berliner (your author’s choice), Bill Frick or Rose Krasnow would have said if they had gotten the Post endorsement. If Berliner had received it, he would have told non-Elrich voters, “I am the one who combines the Sierra Club, moderates, District 1 voters and now the Post. I’m the alternative to Elrich.” Frick would have said something similar while substituting realtors for the Sierra Club. If Krasnow had received it, she would have said, “I am the only woman in a primary in which sixty percent of voters will be women and now I have the Post. I’m the alternative to Elrich.” None of these things can be said now. All three lose the opportunity to leverage the Post endorsement to expand outside their geographic bases.

It is sometimes said that Elrich has a ceiling. Some voters will find a decades-long socialist who equates transit-oriented development with ethnic cleansing and favors rent control unappealing. But Blair has a ceiling too. That was expressed by a commenter on Seventh State’s Facebook page who wrote, “I don’t want a businessman political newcomer who is trying to buy the election.” Fair or not, that is a common sentiment among Democratic activists, and those who feel this way are not persuadable on this point. Blair can send them thirty mailers and they won’t budge. How many rank-and-file voters have this view? David Trone, who shares this handicap, received 22% of MoCo’s vote in the 2016 Congressional District 8 race. That’s an imperfect analogy because CD8 omits some relatively moderate areas in MoCo’s Upcounty and Trone was not talking about the unpopular nine percent property tax hike in his campaign. Still, Blair will need more than 22% to win.

Besides Blair, the other big winner from the Post’s endorsement is Elrich. Elrich has been crusading against rival candidates who have been supported by wealthy businessmen for years; now he gets an ACTUAL wealthy businessman as perhaps his chief opponent. Elrich is no doubt rubbing his hands together in glee as his progressive hordes gird for battle against plutocracy. His field coordinator must be dizzy with joy.

Both the Elrich and Blair campaigns need to consider the following question. Which group is larger in the Democratic primary electorate: the people who believe that taxes have gone up but their service quality has not or the people in Elrich’s base? If the former outnumber the latter – not an impossible prospect considering that a majority of Democrats voted for term limits two years ago – then maybe an outsider has a shot. It would be totally unprecedented given that every prior MoCo Executive has had governing experience before assuming office. But Robin Ficker winning a charter amendment vote by forty points was also unprecedented.

Thanks to the Post, a wild election has gotten a little wilder. There are only forty-three days to go before this story reaches its momentous conclusion!

Adam Pagnucco, Bill Frick, County Executive, George Leventhal, Marc Elrich, Roger Berliner

The Executive Contest is a Two-Candidate Race

April 30, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Washington Post recently published an article declaring that the contest to succeed County Executive Ike Leggett was seen as “anybody’s race.” Pshaw! One of two candidates will win it. One of them is Council Member Marc Elrich, who finished first in the last two Council At-Large primaries and is nearly sweeping progressive endorsements. The other is…

We don’t know yet. And we don’t know if we ever will.

During the 2016 Congressional District 8 race, your author called up one of the smartest people in state politics we know. This fellow lives outside MoCo but he tracks all parts of the state and has sources everywhere. When we asked him who was going to win, he said, “When I talk to the various campaigns, all of them say they’re gonna be the last one at the end along with Jamie Raskin. When I hear that over and over, when I see that they all think that Jamie is the man to beat, that leads me to think Jamie will win.” That dynamic is going on now in the Executive race.

Elrich’s long-time message combining opposition to development with far-left progressivism has earned him an overlapping base of land-use voters, liberals and Downcounty residents, especially in and near Takoma Park, where he served 19 years on the City Council. In the 2014 Council At-Large race, Elrich finished first in every council district except 2 (where he finished second to Nancy Floreen) and first or second in every local area in the county except Damascus and Laytonsville. He finished first in 138 of 251 precincts. In the 2010 Council At-Large race, Elrich finished first in all five council districts and in every local area in the county except Cabin John, Damascus, Darnestown and Laytonsville. He finished first in 166 of 243 precincts. No other MoCo politician running for county office in this cycle has a base of this kind.

How did he assemble it? For many years, Elrich has been assisting residents who oppose master plans all over the county. And whether they won or lost, those development opponents came away from the fight with Elrich as their hero. Here is an illustration: an email sent out by the East Bethesda Citizens Association on 6/2/16, on the eve of the council’s consideration of the Downtown Bethesda Master Plan, describing their meeting with Elrich and calling for action:

A year later, Elrich cast the lone vote against that master plan as he has with several other plans. This plan’s opponents have now been incorporated into Elrich’s base – assuming they were not part of it already.

While other candidates struggle to attract volunteers, Elrich’s volunteer base is well established. In 2014, the campaigns of Elrich and his ally, Beth Daly, posted poll coverage sign-ups on Signupgenius.com. They were able to recruit coverage on 67 precincts, many on more than one shift, with particular strength in the voter-rich areas of Silver Spring, Takoma Park and Leisure World. No one other than the Apple Ballot could touch this. Now that he is running for the county’s highest office, how many precincts will Elrich be able to cover?

Among the influencers and highly informed activists, this election is rapidly becoming defined by whether you’re with Elrich or not. If you don’t believe us, check out the Council District 1 candidates. They’re an interesting group that collectively spans the differences of opinions in the county district containing the most Democrats. Bethesda Magazine reporter Andrew Metcalf asked them during a recent debate for whom each was going to vote in the Executive election. After significant prodding, here’s how the candidates responded:

Bill Cook – would vote for Marc Elrich

Pete Fosselman – undecided; wouldn’t vote for Elrich

Andrew Friedson – undecided; disinclined to vote for Elrich

Ana Sol Gutierrez – torn between Elrich and George Leventhal

Jim McGee – would probably vote for Elrich

Reggie Oldak – refused to say; would not vote for Elrich

Dalbin Osorio – would vote for Elrich

Meredith Wellington – undecided

All of the non-Elrich candidates have potential as well as challenges. Council Members Roger Berliner and George Leventhal are running on their experience and qualifications. (Disclosure: your author respects both but supports Berliner.) Berliner is trying to get known outside his council district and Leventhal has been severely out-polled by Elrich in the last two elections. Delegate Bill Frick, former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow and businessman David Blair are the fresh faces. But they are little-known in most parts of the county and Blair started as a complete unknown. All of these candidates have a long way to go and each of them is in the others’ way.

To contrast with Elrich effectively, a non-Elrich candidate needs to hit this sweet spot dead-on: “We live in a great county, but we can be even better. Here are some ways we can improve.” That involves a bit of threading the needle for the two council incumbents. It’s understandable that they might react to critiques of the county’s economic performance as criticism of their records, but they should think of it like this: every Executive leaves unfinished business for the next Executive. Ike Leggett inherited his share of problems from Doug Duncan, who in turn inherited some issues from Neal Potter. This is entirely normal, so who is the best choice to lead in the future? As for the non-incumbents, they aggressively point to the need to improve, but they tend not to have many specific proposals to get better because they don’t know the history and operations of county government as well as the two Council Members. To be fair, how could they? If no one hits this sweet spot, that leaves Elrich as the only candidate with a crystal-clear message that is distinct from the others. Those who hear Elrich’s message and agree with it are less likely to peel off to someone else than tentative supporters of the other candidates who might change their preferences between them.

One more thing: we wouldn’t be surprised if most, if not all, of the non-Elrich candidates have polled. If so, they all probably found similar results. And so they could all tailor their messages in similar ways and maybe even say the exact same things. That would blur the differences between them and make Elrich stand out even more. This may already be happening as Berliner, Blair and Frick all repeatedly mentioned “innovation” at last Friday’s Executive forum. Was that a coincidence?

If questioned privately, we bet all of the non-Elrich candidates would grudgingly admit that it’s a problem that five of them are in the race. Each of them wants to be the person who gets to take on Elrich one-on-one. So each of the five is looking at the others and saying, “If YOU all get out of the way, I can beat Elrich.” But no one is dropping out because they all think they have a shot. The big winner from this is – you guessed it – Marc Elrich.

One non-Elrich candidate needs to emerge from the pack and consolidate everyone that is not in Elrich’s camp. If that happens, Elrich is beatable. But if nothing changes and this election continues down the path it is on, Elrich will win with less than 40% of the vote.

Adam Pagnucco, Bill Frick, County Executive, Economy, George Leventhal, Marc Elrich, Roger Berliner

Executive Candidates React to Sage Consulting Report on MoCo Economy

April 29, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

Last Friday, the candidates for County Executive attended a forum to discuss a report by Sage Consulting listing numerous problems with the county’s economy. Afterwards, most of the Executive candidates commented on the report and on the economy more generally via email and social media. Their responses say a lot about which ones take the economy seriously, an issue that has drawn much attention from Seventh State.

Council Member Roger Berliner (whom your author supports) sent out this email over the weekend.

Our county has serious work to do to improve our business climate, diversify our economy, and increase the number of good jobs. It must be Priority #1 if we are going to be able to meet the needs of our school system, reduce congestion, invest in public safety, and protect our environment.

I have a record that I am proud of on improving our economy and a vision for our future that you can read about here. Some of my competitors have records too. Others have just words. It’s important to consider what we have done in pursuit of increasing prosperity, not just what we say we will do.

My record includes leading the successful effort to reduce our energy tax three years in a row; creating the small business navigator and a micro-loan program to help our local small businesses and entrepreneurs thrive; and playing a leading role in our Amazon bid. My vision is of a forward leaning county that embraces innovation, education geared towards the jobs of tomorrow, and vibrant urban centers served by state-of-the-art transit.

Yesterday, a consultant tasked with assessing our business climate and outlook, issued a scathing report. It highlighted one startling statistic: that “between 2011 and 2016, the number of [business] establishments in Montgomery County increased by 6, or roughly the population of businesses at a strip mall.” The report concludes that “Montgomery County therefore desperately needs to step up efforts to expand its commercial tax base.” You will get no debate from me on that point.

At the same time, the report declares:

This should not be mistaken for an assertion that Montgomery County is anything other than the finest possible location for Amazon HQ2. It will be difficult for Amazon to identify an area that is as open to new ideas, offers such abundant human capital, is as saturated with transportation options, supports such high quality public education, is as institutionally rich, and is as committed to shared prosperity as Montgomery County, MD.

So, while it is true that we have our challenges, challenges that must be met head-on, it is also true that we have extraordinary assets and a quality of life to match. I will build on our assets as your next County Executive, work diligently to improve our business climate, and am 100% committed to expanding a “shared prosperity.”

Life is good in Montgomery County, but we can make it better still. That’s my goal: a “more perfect” Montgomery County.

In service,

Roger Berliner

Delegate Bill Frick (D-16) sent out this email hours after the Executive forum ended.

Something doesn’t add up. How does a county with our talent, our people, our great public schools and our values lag behind the rest of our region in job growth and economic development? How is it that private sector employment has declined by 12,500 jobs from 2006 to 2016? How is it that, during that same time period, Montgomery County created on net just six new businesses?

The answer is clear. As I told the Montgomery County Business Roundtable earlier today, it is our political culture. My opponents have built a political culture in Montgomery County that doesn’t want to work with businesses to thrive and grow here in our County. And if we elect someone to be County Executive who is part of that culture, things will not get better for business.

I am an outsider to Montgomery County Government and yet I have real governmental leadership experience as the Majority Leader of Maryland’s General Assembly. I have the relationships in Annapolis that can help our County. But since I am not a multi-millionaire, and unlike three of my opponents, I am not spending your taxpayer dollars to fund my campaign, I need your help to communicate with Montgomery County residents who deserve leadership that the current members of the County Council will not provide.

Montgomery County is an awesome place to live. It’s why I’m raising my two children here and sending them to our public schools. But we have a problem, and that is that we must reform in order to create new private sector jobs and increase our tax base. We have to focus on the core functions of county government – education, public safety, and transportation – and those need to be our priorities for our budget. Our County Government does not need to be in the liquor business, a failed venture that is hurting our food culture to the benefit of downtown DC restaurants. We have to have a culture of ‘yes’ in county government so that we are trying to find reasons to say yes to businesses rather than find reasons to say no.

Sincerely,

Bill

Former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow ran this Facebook ad.

David Blair commented on Twitter.

Council Member George Leventhal commented on Facebook.

We are not aware of Council Member Marc Elrich commenting via email, Facebook or Twitter.

Adam Pagnucco, County Executive, George Leventhal, polls

Leventhal Poll Shows Wide Open Executive Race

March 26, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

Council Member George Leventhal, who is running for County Executive, has released an internal poll from Celinda Lake’s firm showing a wide open race. The poll surveyed 400 likely voters with a margin of error of 4.9 points. We reprint the three-page polling memo below and have a few comments following.

So what can be gleaned from this?

First, voters aren’t paying attention yet. No candidate draws more than 11% support in the first run of questions and undecided gets 58%.

Second, the margin of error (4.9 points) matters. In the first run, that means there is no statistically significant difference between the six candidates. For example, Bill Frick polls at 2% but, with the margin of error, could be at 6.9%. Marc Elrich polls at 11% but, with the margin of error, could be at 6.1%. In effect, no one is leading.

Third, even with the “engaged communications” part of the poll, Leventhal is still within the margin of error against Elrich. As for the “final ballot” that shows Leventhal blowing out the rest of the field, it appears to depend on giving respondents additional information on Leventhal and not on the other candidates. It “simulates Leventhal having a resources and communications advantage” that does not exist. At the moment, he will be fifth in cash on hand once the latest public matching funds are disbursed.

Could Leventhal win? Sure, it’s possible. He is a four-term incumbent, a former chair of the county Democratic Party, has a geographically diverse base of small contributions and is working as hard as any candidate in the county.

But the simulations showing Leventhal leading the field right now reek of spin. Voters aren’t fully engaged yet and no one other than David Blair has started mailing regularly and going on television. We believe the poll’s real message, which is that no one has wrapped up this election quite yet.

Disclosure: the author is a publicly-listed supporter of Roger Berliner.

Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large, County Executive, Democrats

Where Are the Voters?

March 7, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

With six Democratic candidates for County Executive and over thirty Democrats running for Council At-Large, the hunt is on for MoCo primary voters. Luckily for the candidates, we are here to point the way!

Let’s start by looking at population. Residents are not distributed evenly across the county. The neighborhoods closest to the D.C. border and close to urban centers are more dense than Upcounty areas. Below we show population estimates by local area for the years 2012-2016 from the U.S. Census Bureau. Local areas are grouped by zip codes. For example, data for Rockville does not refer to the municipality itself, but to the four zip codes that comprise Rockville (20850, 20851, 20852 and 20853). Because Silver Spring is such a large part of the county, we broke it into four pieces: Downtown (zip codes 20901 and 20910), Wheaton (20902), Glenmont/Norbeck (20906) and Silver Spring East County (20903, 20904 and 20905).

And so the population concentrations are where one might expect: Downcounty and near urban centers like Rockville and Gaithersburg. But that’s not the end of the story. Our elections are decided by closed Democratic primaries. For state legislative and county offices, the general elections have not been relevant since 2006, when the last two Republican elected officials (County Council Member Howie Denis and Delegate Jean Cryor) were defeated. And Democrats are distributed differently around the county than all residents.

Right after the last cycle ended, we obtained a January 2015 version of the voter file from the county’s Board of Elections and spliced it with Census data to model local elections. The number of registered Democrats in MoCo has risen by 5% in the last three years so, for the purpose of looking at geographic patterns, our existing voter model is not exact but is not too far off. Below is a comparison of population by local area from 2012-2016 and the number of registered Democrats from January 2015.

There are large differences in Democratic density (the percentage of residents who are registered Democrats) between MoCo’s local areas. In five local areas – Cabin John, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Bethesda and Silver Spring Downtown – more than 40% of residents are registered Democrats. And in seven local areas – Dickerson, Poolesville, Damascus, Germantown, Gaithersburg, Boyds and Clarksburg – less than 30% of residents are registered Democrats.

Now let’s fine-tune this even further. The chart below compares population by local area from 2012-2016 to the number of Super Democrats, whom we define as having voted in all three of the 2006, 2010 and 2014 primaries, in January 2015. This Super Dem number has probably fallen slightly as a few folks who voted in those primaries have left the county or passed away, but the broad pattern will still hold.

Again, there are large differences in Super Democrat density (the percentage of residents who are Super Dems) between local areas. In six areas – Cabin John, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Bethesda, Silver Spring Downtown and Takoma Park – at least 5% of residents are Super Dems. In seven areas – Poolesville, Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, Damascus, Germantown, Boyds and Clarksburg – less than 3% of residents are Super Dems.

Here’s the bottom line – countywide elections are decided in large part by voters in a Democratic Crescent stretching from Takoma Park in the east through Downtown Silver Spring, Kensington and Chevy Chase to Bethesda and Cabin John in the west. These areas roughly trace the neighborhoods around the Beltway and between the Beltway and D.C. They are the parts of the county that sent Jamie Raskin to Congress. Together, the six areas in the Democratic Crescent have 23% of the county’s population, 29% of the registered Democrats and 37% of the Super Dems. Every countywide candidate is going to want to play there.

Does that mean that a candidate whose chief appeal is outside the Democratic Crescent is doomed to fail? Not necessarily. Crescent voters have MANY suitors as most of the Executive and Council At-Large candidates come from those areas and will be aggressively pursuing votes there. Council Member Nancy Floreen, who is a former Mayor and current resident of Garrett Park, won four straight at-large elections by combining women, moderates and Upcounty voters and her 2014 second-place finish was her best ever. This model is no doubt being studied by County Executive candidate and former Mayor of Rockville Rose Krasnow and Council At-Large candidate and Germantown resident Marilyn Balcombe, both of whom Floreen has endorsed.

One more thing. Some Upcounty activists have long complained of the influence of Downcounty on county government decision making. Your author did not witness geographic parochialism on the part of any At-Large Council Members, all of whom come from Downcounty, during the time I was employed at the council. But to the extent that Downcounty does exercise disproportionate influence, it’s because those residents turn out in Democratic primaries to a much greater extent than people who live Upcounty. As long as primaries remain closed to party members, that will continue to be the case in any countywide elections regardless of structural changes in county government. If you are an Upcounty resident and you don’t like that, the best remedy is to get your neighbors to vote in the primary.

Downcounty’s influence is only likely to grow because of one new factor in county politics: the implementation of public financing. As we shall see, a large percentage of contributions to publicly financed candidates is coming from localities in the Democratic Crescent we described above. That information will be published in the near future. Stay tuned to Seventh State!

Adam Pagnucco, Bill Frick, County Executive, George Leventhal, Marc Elrich, Robin Ficker, Roger Berliner

Campaign Finance Reports: County Executive, January 2018

January 18, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

Christmas morning is over and your blogger is done opening the presents – errrrr, campaign finance reports. Now we get to share them with you! And we will start by breaking down the Montgomery County Executive race.

Before we start playing with the toys, let’s clear away the wrapping and discuss a few data issues. Our numbers are different from what you will read in other outlets. That’s because Seventh State readers are special and we are going to give you only the best! First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period. Many candidates, particularly in other races we will discuss, have been campaigning for more than a year and we want to capture that. Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others. Self-funding includes money from spouses. Total raised does not include in-kind contributions. Third, for self-financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in cash on hand (which we call adjusted cash balance). That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.

And now, we reveal the numbers you all have been craving: the first round of fundraising reports for the seven people running for County Executive.

This is exactly the kind of race Council Member Marc Elrich wants. He is up against five other candidates, only one of whom has run countywide before, who are nothing like him and cannot steal votes from his progressive and anti-development base. Better yet, because of public financing, he has the resources to be financially competitive. (The thought of Elrich with money is almost as strange as the sight of Elrich wearing a suit and tie.) Elrich has been building a grass roots base for thirty years and he will be able to combine it with substantial labor, progressive and environmental support. This election is starting to turn into Elrich and a competition to become the non-Elrich alternative.

Council Member Roger Berliner has to feel good about his report. He leads the field in total raised for the cycle and cash on hand, and also has the lowest burn rate. Berliner can now start making the case to those who are not inclined to support Elrich that he is the most viable alternative to Elrich. Doing that is essential for his path to victory. (Disclosure: your author is a publicly-listed supporter of Berliner and has done work for him in the past.)

Businessman David Blair is sometimes compared to fellow businessman David Trone, but he is not using a Trone-like strategy. When Trone entered the CD8 race last year, he staffed up rapidly and began spending millions on television within weeks. Accordingly, some observers expected Blair to write himself a million dollar check, putting opponents on notice and perhaps intimidating one or two of them to withdraw. But while Trone plays to win, Blair looks like he’s playing around. He gave himself just enough money ($300,000) to equal the formerly penniless Elrich in cash on hand and trail Berliner. As for private sector fundraising, Berliner has raked in almost three times as much as Blair. Blair needs to sharpen his message, learn more about the county and show a hunger to win.

Council Member George Leventhal is plenty hungry. He might be the hardest-working candidate in the race and he clearly believes he’s the best person for the job. But Leventhal is killing his campaign with his sky-high burn rate (46%), which is more than double the burn rates of Elrich (19%) and Berliner (18%). Like Berliner, Leventhal needs to show to non-Elrich folks that he is the most viable alternative to Elrich. To do that, he needs to tighten up his spending and get some big endorsements – sooner rather than later.

Bill Frick, you know we love you. We admire your heroism on the liquor monopoly and we appreciate all the great fodder you have given us over the years. But you showed a cash balance of $150,753 – less than half what Berliner, Elrich and Blair reported. Why are you doing this, Bill? We want many more years of you in public office, so please take our advice: stay in the House and run to succeed Brian Frosh as Attorney General when the time comes. We will help you do it! We will even write dozens of blog posts just like this one.

Former Planning Department staffer and Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow is an appealing, substantive and competent candidate with fans in both the business and smart growth communities. The fact that she is the only female candidate running against five men in a Democratic primary electorate that is almost 60% female is a big plus. Her numbers are not in yet, but she told Bethesda Magazine that she had raised $39,800 from small contributions in the public financing system. If that’s true, it means she is on pace to qualify for public matching funds much faster than either Elrich or Leventhal did. Still, we don’t understand why she entered public financing. It takes a long time to raise money that way and it prevents her from tapping into what could be substantial business support. Even if she qualifies for matching funds, she could very well trail all the other Democrats in fundraising except maybe Frick.

Republican Robin Ficker appears roughly halfway to qualifying for public matching funds. That means the county’s most infamous anti-tax activist could wind up campaigning on the public dole. And all of you MoCo residents will be paying for that!

Next up: the council at-large candidates.

Adam Pagnucco, campaign finance, Council At-Large, County Executive, George Leventhal, Hans Riemer, Hoan Dang, Marc Elrich, Nancy Navarro

Public Financing Update: January 2, 2018

January 2, 2018 Adam Pagnucco

By Adam Pagnucco.

Happy New Year, folks! After a relatively quiet period in the fall, December saw a number of applications for public matching funds from county candidates participating in public financing. One of the many positive things about public financing is that when candidates apply for matching funds, they have to file full reports with the State Board of Elections. That gives data junkies like your author – and Seventh State readers! – lots of updated data without waiting for the relatively few regular campaign finance reports in the state’s schedule. The next time all campaign finance reports are due, both from public and traditional accounts, is on January 17.

The candidates below have met the thresholds for matching funds and have applied for those funds from the state.

A few notes. The column titled “Non-Qualifying Contributions and Loans” refers to loans from candidates and their spouses (up to $12,000 is allowed) and out-of-county contributions, which are allowed but not matched. The column titled “Adjusted Cash Balance” includes the cash balance in the last report plus the most recent matching funds distribution requested but not yet received. It is the closest we can approximate the financial position of each campaign at the time they filed their last report. The column titled “Burn Rate” is the percentage of funds raised that has already been spent. Generally speaking, candidates should strive to keep their burn rates low early on to save money for mail season. Mohammad Siddique’s totals are preliminary as there are a few issues in his report that will have to be resolved with the Board of Elections. And District 4 Council Member Nancy Navarro applied for $35,275 in matching funds but cannot receive them unless she gets an opponent.

Below is the number of days each candidate took to qualify for matching funds. Let’s remember that the thresholds are different: 500 in-county contributors with $40,000 for Executive candidates, 250 in-county contributors with $20,000 for at-large council candidates and 125 in-county contributors with $10,000 for district council candidates.

So what does it all mean? Here are a few thoughts.

County Executive Race

Council Members Marc Elrich and George Leventhal, who are using public financing and running for Executive, have been active in county politics for a long time. Elrich first joined the Takoma Park City Council in 1987 and has been on the county ballot in every election since. He has been an elected official for thirty years. Leventhal worked for U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski and was the Chair of the county Democrats in the 1990s. He played a key role in defeating a group of Republican Delegates in District 39 in the 1998 election. Both of these fellows have built up large networks of supporters over many years and they have done well in public financing, raising similar amounts of money from similar numbers of people.

The difference between them is burn rate. Leventhal is spending much more money than Elrich early, with some of it going to a three-person staff. He had better hope this early spending is worth it because if this trend keeps up, Elrich could have almost twice as much money as Leventhal available for mailers in May and June.

At-Large Council Race

One of Council Member Hans Riemer’s advantages as the only incumbent in this race is the ability to raise money, and he has put it to good use in public financing. Riemer leads in number of contributors and total raised. He has also maintained a low burn rate. This is Riemer’s fourth straight county campaign and he knows what he’s doing at election time. His biggest problem is that his name will be buried near the end of a VERY long ballot.

The five non-incumbents who have qualified for matching funds have raised similar amounts of money so far. As a group, they are not far behind Riemer. The one who stands out here is Bill Conway. Hoan Dang, Evan Glass, Chris Wilhelm and Mohammad Siddique all filed in December while Conway last filed in September. Our bet is that when Conway files next month, he will show four months of additional fundraising that will put him close to Riemer’s total.

That said, the five non-incumbent qualifiers have so far separated themselves from the rest of the field. Gabe Albornoz and Danielle Meitiv have said they have qualified but have not filed for matching funds with the state. No other candidates have claimed to qualify. Raising money in public financing takes a long time and raising a competitive amount (at least $250,000) takes a REALLY long time. Those at-large candidates who do not qualify soon risk appearing non-viable.

Public Matching Funds Will Be Nowhere Close to $11 Million

The county has so far set aside $11 million to cover the cost of public matching funds. That appears to be waaaaaay too much with only $1.4 million so far disbursed. Our guess is that the ultimate total will be less than half what was allocated and will be even lower in the next election cycle with fewer seats open.

Incumbents Have Nothing to Fear From Public Financing

Five council incumbents are using public financing. All five have qualified for matching funds and have done so fairly easily. We will see how the challengers stack up, particularly in the at-large race, but so far the only at-large incumbent (Hans Riemer) is leading. As we predicted last April, public financing is good for incumbents because it allows them to leverage their networks into lots of small individual contributions. State legislators and other County Councils should take heed.

That’s it for now, folks. Come back in a couple weeks when all reports, including those from traditional accounts, are due and we’ll put it all together for you!

Maryland Politics Watch