Great news coming out of MD-4 as we watch Al Wynn go down to defeat, but that is not the only incumbent that is going down to defeat in the great state of MD. Republican Congressman Wayne Gilchrest lost to State Senator Andrew Harris in MD-1.
Follow me below the fold to look at this race and the interesting dynamics created by Harris defeating Gilchrest…
Future Republican Nominee Andrew Harris is a Club For Growth candidate, who has represented the Harford County and Baltimore County part of a district that has roughly 50% of its population on the Eastern Shore of MD, 25% in Anne Arundel County north of Annapolis, and 25% in Harford and Baltimore County. The Democratic Nominee will be Frank Kratovil who is the State’s Attorney in Queen Anne’s County. Queen Anne’s County is on the Eastern Shore. This sets up a regional dynamic to the general election. The Eastern Shore really doesn’t like anything “Baltimore”, which they define as anything on the west side of the Bay Bridge whether it is in fact Baltimore or Nebraska or Oregon. With the Republican Andrew Harris from Baltimore County and the Democrat Frank Kratovil from the Eastern Shore the Democrats have a real opportunity to appeal to Eastern Shore voters and win the district. Eastern Shore voters tend to be more in favor of protecting the environment and for fiscal discipline than Republicans these days, particularly Club For Growth candidates like Andrew Harris.
Frank Kratovil can win this race. I have known him for about 11 years and volunteered on his first election for State’s Attorney in 2002. I have never met a harder working campaigner. He will out work Harris. He also is both very charismatic and a policy wonk.
I really do hope you’re right about this. But it is an R+10 district (Bush got 62% there in 2004) and we can’t expect Obama-or-Clinton to run too hard in Maryland, since either of them will already have its electoral votes in his/her back pocket barring a complete meltdown. What are your thoughts on Kratovil’s ability to overcome the raw numbers?
is that districts like this become worthy of investment when before they might have been ignored. There are probably 30+ better targets but that doesn’t make it any less worth a look. Thus MD-1 definitely joins my watch list.
Of course we have a chance this year, it’s an open seat and what looks like a wave year, perhaps a transformative year. Certainly the voters in MD have shown that the same-o same-o is not gonna win this time — a sentiment that apparently cross the color line and these district lines.
Any help from the DCCC, however, will probably come very late in the game. They say they’ve changed their ways from last time — not interfering in primaries, for example. (They leave that to the DSCC.) The local candidate will still have to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars before the DCCC will decide he’s viable.
But the point about the DCCC having more money this time around should still hold, if you flip it the other way. The RCCC has some 30 open seats — and still a good number of vulnerable incumbents — to protect. Even with the Club for Growth willing to spend big here, the Repub Party itself will not be able to offer much cash assistance at all.