The Democratic non-incumbents seem (with one, perhaps two
exceptions) to be concentrating on their “home” counties. As a Howard County voter, I have seen scant
evidence of energetic, sustained campaigning in HoCo by Malcolm Heflin or Mark Weaver.
In terms of direct mail, I have thus far received precisely one postcard from a
Baltimore County-based candidate (Weaver).
That’s it.
Meanwhile, turning to the Howard County non-incumbent candidates,
Jonathan Bratt pulled out of the race back in April and Dario Broccolino, let’s
face it, is not running an active campaign for Delegate. Jessica Feldmark, from all accounts, appears
to be executing a District-wide effort but the one candidate who clearly stands
out in terms of campaigning vigorously in both counties is James Howard.
I get the logic behind running a “geographic-base”-heavy
strategy in D12 in 2018, to a certain extent, but with the huge caveat that it
doesn’t work for Baltimore County-based candidacies.
In 2014, there were three open seats and 10 Democratic
candidates. Savvy campaigns understood
that they needed to implement a “run hard everywhere” plan in order to secure
the nomination. As you can see in the
graph below, the top-vote getter, Clarence Lam, obtained the greatest number of
votes in Howard County (4,775) but he also placed a very close fifth in
Baltimore County, a mere 26 votes behind the second place finisher (Nick
Stewart). Meanwhile, Terri Hill placed
second in Howard County (4,509 votes) and fourth in Baltimore County (1,550),
just 8 votes shy of second place.
There was a big-drop off between the second and third spots
overall, with Eric Ebersole’s total vote count (4,427) being less than what both Lam
and Hill pulled out of Howard County alone.
That said, his 2,870 vote tally out of HoCo was good enough for third,
and he also placed third in Baltimore county, one vote behind the second place
finisher.
Rebecca Dongarra concentrated on Baltimore County, which she
won (with 2,135 votes) but she also ran a legitimate effort in Howard County,
where she placed fourth. Had 323
Ebersole voters cast their ballots for Dongarra instead, she would have been
one of the three D nominees. Of course, a
gap of 323 votes is hardly a razor-thin margin, but it shows that the third and
fourth place candidates were much closer to each other on the vote count
compared to the first and second place candidates, who were in a league of
their own with over 6,000 votes apiece.
Turning to the present-day, everyone went in with the following
assumption: that Hill and Ebersole were
mortal locks and thus it is key to “turn out the base” for the third slot. I would argue that Hill was the only true,
electorally proven, near-certainty, although Ebersole has certainly established
himself as a presence in the District and in Annapolis. But I digress. With most of the D12 primary vote coming out
of Howard County and only two incumbents (one from HoCo and one in Baltimore
County but with a long-standing connection to HoCo), this created opportunities
for Howard County-based challengers…especially one (or ones) with a compelling
message and willing to run two-county campaigns. This definitely describes James Howard and it
also fits Jessica Feldmark (the former stumping particularly aggressively in
Baltimore County). Of course, Feldmark
is on the Apple Ballot, which is a Big Deal in both counties.
So why did neither Heflin nor Weaver push harder in HoCo,
given the concentration of votes in D12?
Were they thinking that Howard County voters would mark just two choices
on their ballots? Did they believe they
could pull off a better version of Dongarra 2014, win Baltimore County by a big
margin and obtain just enough votes in HoCo to finish third, despite the
presence of two incumbents in the race? Why
such desultory efforts from two candidates that seem, on paper at least, to be
serious (as opposed to Broccolino’s half-hearted “campaign”). So many questions that fall like the dreary rains
on this grey Thursday morning.
Prediction: there
will be a pronounced gap between the top four candidates (Ebersole, Feldmark,
Hill, and Howard…in alphabetical order, not projected order of finish) and the
others.
In solidarity.
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